Rob put together another St. Martin's day lantern-making party to
celebrate a reluctant bishop. We had about 50 people show up, and everyone made paper lanterns. Some were very traditional and some were really creative. [and totally off topic here, but Will and Logan, above, are both in 4th grade. In fact, Will is actually 14 months
younger than Logan. Lest you think that I exaggerate about how monstrous large my children are. The first thing Sebi's kindergarten teacher said at his parent/teacher conference was "Sebi is
huge. I saw him walk in and I thought 'oh, I've got a repeater in here' but no, he's just huge." end of tangent]
I really like Kaisa's lantern here. It looks traditional to me. I was also thrilled to see several more hedgehogs patterned after mine (it's a great pattern, though he's looking tired after three years).
Then we went out, lit them up, and walked around singing lantern songs. Tasha, above, just got her mission call to the Berlin, Germany mission, where we just sent Lillian, another of our Vienna study abroaders from this summer. Congrats to Tasha! We're excited for her, and also for McKay, who is going to Ventura, California Spanish-speaking. The man is going to enjoy some fantastic food (he does wherever he goes, and his enthusiasm is contagious. His strudels are better than mine now)!
Everyone sang as they walked, and walked, and walked, and this year we remembered matches and lighters (yay!). Cindy and I fell behind with two babies, three lanterns and one stroller to lug up the stairs, but we had a nice discussion about Michael Pollan and the politics of eating. People appeared to have a good time, but the highest compliment came from a German native student who said "This is just like my childhood!"