Yesterday we built gingerbread houses with the Monson’s. I was feeling a bit ambitious so I decided that the best thing to build would be Saint Peter’s Basilica. This was my inspiration:

Here are some pictures documenting the process:

Two preliminary walls. A good start.

The main dome.

The unmounted dome and walls.

The dome now mounted.

Dome and walls all done. Now I need to start on the roof

I finished with the cardboard structure. We are now ready to decorate!

Started covering the facade with grahams.

Finished graham-ing… ready to cover with candy!

Working on the facade.

Me with the finished giant.

A view of the finished thing from the front.

Up close of the finished dome.

Side view of the finished thing.

Elisabeth decided that she wanted to build a piano. It turned out great. A few pics:

The finished piano.

Look how awesome the back of hers is.

Up close of the piano.

So since our last post, school decided to pick up quite heavily, and thus we have been remiss in writing about our super exciting life. I’ll just give you some highlights

1. We won the French Club costume contest at Halloween! The reason we won (my guess) is because Josh had this AWESOME mask!
   

   Wouldn't you vote for him?!

   

   When you see a sign that says anything that sounds like "Jimmer" you just have to record it This was just outside Fort Leonard Wood (where Nathan trained).

2. Josh’s family participates in the Nightmare Express train ride every year. He and his dad and brother Aaron make the light-show and it is really great! This year, the train had over 11,000 visitors! (We’re pretty famous like that!)
3. Apparently the month of November was rather uneventful month because neither of us could think of anything that we did between Halloween and Thanksgiving. School was all, I guess.
4. After a wonderful Thanksgiving of turkey and happiness with family, we took off for about 4 days to Missouri for Army boot-camp graduation. Josh’s cousin Nathan graduated and is now in Arizona for Officer Intelligence Training!
5. And finally, as of this morning, we have both finished all our classes for the semester, and only finals are left until we are FREE! (for awhile)
   

   We stopped at a cheese outlet on the way back to the Branson airport, and we HAD to get a picture with the giant cheese!

   

   This is the men with the manly looking army tractor thing. Nathan is the one in the uniform! Uncle Tyler is in red, Josh is left of Tyler, and Justin is left of Josh.