the best pumpkin bread recipe in the whole wide world

1 cup vegetable oil

3 cups sugar

1 tsp. vanilla

3 eggs

3 cups flour, sifted

1 tsp. cinnamon

¼ tsp. allspice

½ tsp. cloves

1 tsp. nutmeg

1 tsp. baking powder

½ tsp. salt

¾ tsp. baking soda

2 cups (15 ounce can) pumpkin

1 cup chopped nuts (optional)

Preheat oven to 350. Beat together oil, sugar, vanilla, and eggs. Combine and add dry ingredients. Add pumpkins and nuts. Grease and flour two loaf pans. Bake one hour.

Enjoy!

PS: It freezes really well.

PPS: It's also really good as banana bread. Just substitute 2 cups mashed banana for the pumpkin.

Pepperdine

Last week we got to go to Southern California to the Bible lectures at Pepperdine. 

Some of the highlights from our week in no particular order:

enjoying the beauty of God's creation

late night conversations with Keith, Bob, Lourene, and Laura

visiting with ACU ministry friends

visiting with ACU mentors and professors

lots of good food

playing in the ocean with Laura

thought provoking lectures and classes

time with aunt, uncle, and cousins

praising God through song

learning some awesome new songs from Zoe

and now for some pictures....

a day at the beach with my sweet SIL, Laura....soooo fun! it doesn't get any better than the ocean! WOW! I loved every bit of it...waves are one of my favorite parts of creation! All of the metaphors in scripture that compare God's love to the depths of the ocean came to life for me more than ever! 

a day in LA...fun and relaxing

and here's a glimpse at what we ate....yikes that's a lot of food! but it was all soooo yummy:)

happy thanksgiving

Hope all of you blog buddies had a happy thanksgiving and enjoyed some good food and fellowship with loved ones. Keith and I had a wonderful time with my mom, dad, and sister. My mom is the best cook ever, so we enjoyed all of the traditional thanksgiving favorites! We also had fun playing games, a holiday "must" in my opinion:) We have so much to be thankful for! Sweet family and friends are at the top of the list. It's fun to have a day set aside every year when we are all reminded to be thankful.

summer rewind #1...vacation

As you can see on Keith's arm, the spray on sunscreen is not all it's cracked up to be. We both had blotches of burn after day one at the beach:(

Back in July, Keith and I had a vacation! It. was. so. much. fun. We went to Gulf Shores, Alabama and we LOVED it! Here are a few pictures from our week of fun!

our nice, comfy, relaxing condo!

hanging at the beach!

our camp

big outlet mall!

date nights!

with lots of YUMMY seafood!

deep sea fishing

the serious fisherman...his less-serious fishing buddy got sea sick:(

before

after...we fried Freddy

and grilled Greta.

sporting our souvenir shirts for one last delicious blueberry biscuit at our fave place

If you ever get the opportunity to go on a beach vacation, GO! It was so much fun, so relaxing, so wonderful, we loved it!