Much to be thankful for

Wow...we just completed a full and busy Thanksgiving weekend. Wednesday evening saw us attending a Thanksgiving Eve service at church. Our current pastoral intern led the service. He had a band of young people lead the singing, then he did a short devotional, sharing verses from Psalm 106:1 & 2 & Psalm 107:1, 8, 9. Give thanks to the LORD, for he is good; his love endures forever. Let them give thanks to the LORD for his unfailing love and his wonderful deeds for men, for he satisfies the thirsty and fills the hungry with good things (Psalm 107:1, 8-9). I liked his emphasis which was how appropriate it is to have an attitude of thanksgiving going into the Christmas season. Isn't celebrating the birth of Jesus something to be grateful for!

On Thursday, Thanksgiving Day, I spent the morning in the kitchen, making a batch of dinner rolls, a cherry pie and a batch of cinnamon chip oatmeal cookies. We left the house at 2:00 pm, riding with Andy's mom and dad over to Andy's brother Dan's house. Andy's 2 brothers and various of their children were there. It was a smaller crowd than usual. None of our girls and families could be there but were occupied either with their own family or their in-laws. (No pictures because I forgot to take my camera.)

Friday was a big day. I had decided that I didn't want to make a turkey this year, especially since we would be having turkey on Thanksgiving Day. So one of the girls suggested a brunch. Everyone arrived around 10:30 and as soon as food was warmed and put on the table, we sat down and partook of a scrumptious feast. There was French toast casserole, apple crisp, fruit and dip, 2 quiches, sausage & bacon wraps, and various juices and drinks.

Christy and Christian recently obtained a new camera so after we ate, we assembled for our annual family pictures. She got some great shots, too.Then we had to take a family hike, also a holiday tradition. This time we drove up to Smithville Historic Park in Mt. Holly where the trail meanders along the side of a lake and onto a floating boardwalk across the lake. There were lots of Canadian geese on the lake as well as 3 great blue herons. The kids enjoyed picking up leaves and branches and just being together as cousins and family.Dawn stayed back at the house so Kira could take a nap. She wasn't feeling well, although we didn't realize that until later in the day.

When we returned to the house, some of us played games, others visited, and the little ones had stories read by Grammy.For dinner, Andy went and got panzarottis for everyone. He was a hero!What a day. Everyone went home happy, except maybe Kira. Poor girl, she tried hard to enjoy herself, but was so exhausted, she couldn't keep her head up.

On Saturday, I was pretty worn out myself. My goal was to go grocery shopping and clean the house. I skipped the shopping and stayed home all day. I did get the house cleaned up, but took my good old time about it, stopping many times to rest and relax, even taking a nap in the afternoon.

I couldn't help thinking how blessed we are to have such fun times with our family. Andy and I know many situations in our church of people who come from dysfunctional situations, are divorced under hateful conditions, or don't have wonderful memories of loving family times. My heart hurts for them and helps me be even more grateful for what I enjoy.

Happy Thanksgiving

Give thanks in all circumstances, for this is God's will for you in Christ Jesus.
1 Thessalonians 5:18

We were planning to have C & C's children for the weekend, but their trip had to be postponed to later in the month. Andy and I knew the kids were so excited about coming here, so we decided to have them over for a day of fun. So we checked the weather forecast and decided Friday was going to be a very nice day. Andy worked on Tuesday so he could take Friday off. I took Tuesday off and worked extra hard so I could take Friday off, too.

On Thursday we left home around 4:00 after work and drove over to C & C's. We enjoyed a delicious dinner made by Christy, then packed up Grace, Aiden, Naomi and Asher into their van and came back to our house. When we got here, we settled down for the night in "their" room upstairs. I have a book of stories by "Uncle Remus" that I started reading aloud to them. They were giggling over the antics of Brer Rabbit and Brer Fox, and Andy fell asleep on the floor. It brought back memories of reading to our own daughters when they were young. I'm not sure it was such a good tonic for producing sleepiness to their eyes, but it always worked wonders for Andy!

After feasting on blueberry pancakes for breakfast the next morning, we got ready to go to the shore. Dawn and Kira came over and we drove down together. She actually had to drive separately because the van couldn't fit 3 adults and 5 children. Both the van and Dawn's car had cassette decks in them, so we raided our basement for story tapes to listen to on the ride to Ocean City. This also brought back memories: listening to story tapes on long car rides.

It was a beautiful day: bright sun, cool but not cold. The kids played on the beach all morning. Andy and I mostly stayed behind a sand dune that gave some shelter from the wind, but the kids didn't seem to mind and were running and playing as if it was summer.

King & queen of the mountain!

The sea was rough, but the sky was a gorgeous blue - a perfect day to be there just enjoying being alive.

I think Kira must have been the funniest. She would flop down on the sand, right on her face and move her hands around like she was swimming!All that play made us hungry, so we left the beach at 11:45 to head for the boardwalk and Mack & Manco. Their pizza is the best. We ordered one pie, but it was quickly devoured, so we ordered another one. Wow! We finished that one, too.After lunch, Dawn decided to leave with Kira so she (Kira, that is!) could get a nap. The rest of us stayed and walked the boardwalk. It's amazing to observe how the kids can occupy themselves with something as simple as walking the boardwalk. Some of the boards in the boardwalk had recently been replaced so they looked newer than the older boards. The kids made a game of trying to jump from each new board, some of them being close together and others very far apart.

We also went into a couple of stores that were open. We found a shell shop and each of the kids picked a shell they liked for Grammy to buy them. We were looking for a hermit crab to replace theirs that had escaped, but it's not the season for them right now. And a trip to the shore would not be complete without stopping at Shrivers. We bought some fudge for "Christy" who graciously shared with us that evening after dinner.

The plan was to meet Christy half way between their house and ours to exchange vehicles and occupants. But as we were driving up from the shore, we got a call from her. She was wondering if we had left our car key. I remembered taking it off my key ring and laying it on their table before we left on Thursday night. But she couldn't find it. Then I remembered something else. That morning, Andy had been walking around the house with a key, saying he didn't know what it was for. He thought maybe it was for a church van and he had brought it home. Well, you guessed it...it was our car key. He doesn't remember picking it up and coming home with it, but somehow that must be what happened. Poor guy, he must have too much on his mind right now.

So that meant we had to drive all the way back to C & C's house, but it also meant we got another delicious dinner made by her. I felt bad that she had to cook for us again, and at the same time, glad I had bought her that fudge!

There's just something so special about spending the day with children. We had a wonderful time and I hope they did, too.

Oh Happy Day

Some days turn out a lot differently than what you expect when you start out. Yesterday was one of those days. I slept longer than usual because I couldn't get to sleep the night before. But when I finally got up, Andy asked me what I was going to do while he was out all day. I wasn't really very sure, although I did make up a list for myself. It didn't seem very exciting - just kind of ho-hum.

I got my shower, walked 2 miles, started a batch of dinner rolls and a load of laundry. Then I got a phone call. That call changed the rest of my day. Suddenly the sun was shining (it already had been but now I noticed!) and I was excited and energized. Christy called to say Christian was on his way to NJ to do some tree work for friends of ours when the vehicle he was in broke down. Now they needed to make new plans on how he was to get here, so they decided to come together as a family and have Christian drop them all off at our house to spend the day with me! Yeah! Christy and 4 lovely children - what could be better. While they were on their way, Dawn called to ask what I was doing. Bless her heart, she was concerned for my loneliness while Andy was gone all day. I told her to come on over and join her sister and Kira's cousins.

So the day turned out a lot differently than what I expected when I woke up in the morning. But in my mind - it was a hundred times better. Lots of together time with Christy, Dawn, Grace, Aiden, Naomi, Asher & Kira. I got to braid Grace's hair, read Madeline's Rescue to Naomi and Aiden, play with the kids at the swing set, enjoy good conversation with Christy & Dawn and eat dinner together (Andy & Christian joined us for dinner).

Hmmm...how did we not get Aiden in any of our pictures? I'm pretty sure he was here, too.

It's that time of the year

I've been busy...too busy to blog. Time doesn't stand still and if I don't take a few minutes to dash off something, I will forget all that I did that made me so busy.

It seems like now that our house projects are all "done," we should have lots of leisure time to relax and do nothing on our days off. But I don't think it's possible for us to just do nothing. So we've been helping Dawn with her house projects. Last Tuesday, we made over her garden in the front of her house. And yesterday we went to visit Amy and family because Andy still hadn't seen Katy, even though she is already 3 weeks old.

Andy is well into Nativity preparation, spending all last Saturday at the church supervising work day. The remaining Saturdays before Thanksgiving will also be consumed with Nativity work at the church. We jokingly refer to myself as a Nativity widow around this time every year.

Here are some pictures of work that was done on Saturday.
With Andy busy on Saturday, I went over in the afternoon to Dawn's to do some more gardening. On Tuesday we had only taken out the old railroad ties that edged the garden that was there and cut in a new border, enlarging it a little. On Saturday, Dawn and I went to a couple local nurseries and bought some bushes and pansies. We also had time to plant them. She finished up herself with the mulching the next day or so. For pictures of Dawn's garden, check out her blog.

It's such a blessing to be able to go spend time with our girls and their families. Yesterday was a lot of fun. We went to Amy's mid-afternoon - about the time Chase and Joanna were waking up from their naps. They were so glad to see us, especially Andy since they hadn't seen him when I was up a week ago. He wrestles with and tickles them and gets them to giggling and laughing. They actually got pretty wound up! We got Katy up from her nap, Amy put her in the Ergo and we walked to the town park. It was such a beautiful fall day - perfect for playing in the park. We got back in time to set the table and meet Ricky home from work. We ate supper together and visited a little before heading back to Jersey.
It was back to work today, then running a couple of errands before going home, making dinner and baking a double batch of banana oatmeal bread.

The next couple of weeks will give plenty of material for blogging if I just get enough minutes to write about it.