Holiday Season Part 1: Over the River and Through the Woods

Happy Thanksgiving! The official start to the holiday season started today, at least for our family. As soon as family is involved, it rings all too clearly of the spirit of the season (not intending to sound sarcastic here, but never-the-less, I just giggled).

It had been a busy week, but very enjoyable. Skip ahead to Wednesday...I went to lunch with my family at the new Snoqualmie Casino and won $40 on a penny slot machine! We then hosted our community group for a pre-Thanksgiving dinner, somehow we all fit around a dining room table (kids included). We all had good intentions to go to the Ballard Thanksgiving service at 7pm after our dinner together. However, in our intentions to plan wisely (i.e. post-pone naps so that kids would make it through the service), none of our kids actually took their naps...so we had actual and potential meltdowns about every 10 minutes (us included). Really, it was a good time to connect and relax, and Greg and I enjoyed opening up the new home to our church family. That night we had a date night, and since there was no place open in North Bend to get dessert, we traveled a few miles up the road to the Snoqualmie Casino to gamble the $40 I had won previously that day and to find out that drinks are not complimentary. We ended the night with a McDonald's milkshake and fries before crashing at his parent's house.

So here's the run-down on Thanksgiving for Greg and I. Every year, we have to share the holidays with each family. That means, one family gets us for Thanksgiving and the other for Christmas day...we've found ourselves to be a hot commodity, second in line only to Josie. We spent some time with Greg's parents in the morning to share breakfast with them (homemade biscuits and gravy!). This gave me the precious time I needed to decorate my notorious turkey cake, which later got intentionally demolished before anyone could eat it...no not by me or Josie....not to insinuate Greg either, it was actually my own mom, for the purpose of good video footage : ) So we spent Thanksgiving in Ellensburg on my grandparent's farm. We had a good time (yes, I say we because Greg did too!) We were surprised to find that their TV was able to get a snowy version of the football games, so Greg was thoroughly enjoying the Titans big win. Josie had a good time getting re-acquainted with the family she hasn't seen in awhile, and I had a good time feeding the horses next door, after driving across a pasture in a golf cart in 35 degree weather to get to them.

But really, it was a wonderful day filled with laughter and family. I was thankful the Lord brought us all together, especially my sister from California. I was also thankful for the time I spent with Greg in the car on the way over. We had some good conversations and felt energized for the rest of the day together. He let me sleep on the way back...what a sweetheart : ) So here we are....relaxing and unwinding from another busy week, but one that has been truly blessed and we are very thankful for our friends and family who shared this time with us.