Thanksgiving

The Thanksgiving festivities are now finished for my family. We've enjoyed our week and have especially been thankful to have my wonderful hubby home for 4 days straight. Here's the rundown of our week.

Saturday (20th) - My Mom's family met for our annual Thanksgiving meal at my Uncle David's house. My Mom is the 9th of 10 children, so this is a very large gathering. This was our 1st Thanksgiving without my Pappaw, so of course it was a bit bittersweet. The turnout was great. There were a LOT of people there and a lot of great food. My hubby was at home in the bed sick. I was very sad that he couldn't go with us and had such a hard time leaving him. I think he was glad for a bit of quiet time, though.

Monday (22nd) - Our homeschool group has an annual Thanksgiving feast. We were not planning to go this year because we had two appointments that morning and I was just not sure we could get there in time. However, a friend called my girls and wanted us to come to the feast and then come to their house afterward. I'm also friends with this girls Mom and she has a brother my son's age, so it's a great fit for our family and we get together whenever we can. There is a lot of time for fellowship at the feast and I got to meat a Mom that I hadn't met before and chat with her for a while as well as catch up with some Mom's that I hadn't seen in quite a while. There never seems to be quite enough food there, but there are always 2 pots of community soup. Everyone brings an ingredient for the soup and it all goes in the pot. It's actually quite tasty. There is a pie baking contest, so there are plenty of desserts. I had a piece of pecan pie and it was very yummy. There are also costume and weapons building contests as well as a skit. We left there and thoroughly enjoyed spending a couple of hours at our friends house.

Tuesday - My Mom had a cousin that babysat my older brother and I from the time we were infants until I think I was three or so. Her name was Lois and her husband's name was Bob. My brother dubbed them Mama Lois and Daddy Bob and those names stuck. That's what their grandchildren called them and most everyone else. When I was 16 she died of breast cancer, but we have remained very close to the rest of her family. Several months ago their son and daughter-in-law moved in with Daddy Bob to help take care of him and began having a Tuesday night meal for friends and family. We go once or twice a month and it is truly a highlight of our week when we get to go. They live in a cabin in the woods. It's such a neat place to be. Tuesday night we had our Thanksgiving meal with all of them and had 59 people in attendance. It was such a good evening.

Thursday - We went to my Mom's and had homemade pizzas. Very nontraditional. Honestly, I wasn't thrilled with the idea. The theory was that we had all had traditional Thanksgiving meals and might be growing tired of it, but I had actually not had much traditional thanksgiving food and we already had plans to have a pizza night on Friday night. It was really an oh well kind of day I suppose. I didn't get a vote and it's my Mom's home and if that's what she wants to do that's what we will do. So, we had pizza and cookies. I woke up on Wednesday with a bit of a sore throat and by Thursday I knew I was coming down with something so I felt pretty yucky most of the day and we decided to head home a bit earlier than usual.

Friday - I got up early and headed out to do some shopping. I usually do a lot, but I was just feeling so yucky and tired and it was rainy and cold. I got several things that we needed for the holidays and bought a gift to put up for my son's birthday (which he already found, because I'm a dork and sent him to the van for something before I remembered I had not yet gotten the gifts out of it....) I came back home and went to bed for a couple of hours. Then I got up and we got some cleaning done and watched the Alabama and Auburn football game (better known as the Iron Bowl). It was a very interesting game. Auburn was down 24-0, but we've spent most of the year being a 2nd half team and in the end we came back and won 28-27. WAR EAGLE!!! Later that evening my cousin and her family came over for a homemade pizza night. This is a tradition that we started with them a few years ago. We do it at both houses and typically only do it with each others families. It seems weird to do it with anyone else.... Their daughter is in her 2nd year of college, so we usually try to have pizza night when she is home. We made 5 pizzas and they were very good. My girls also made some cake mix cookies and those (especially the caramel ones) were a HUGE hit! We always have a ton of leftovers, so we got to have that for supper last night as well. YUM!

Saturday - I would have to say that yesterday was the highlight of my week. My husband has a son from his first marriage. Patrick and I have been married for 15 years, so Josh has been in my life for 16 years (including the year that we dated). I love him like my own and miss him terribly. Josh joined the Army in January and was recently selected for Special Forces. He will spend the next year and a half going through the training required to actually become SF. Thankfully, he is now stationed about 8 hours away and his eventual station will be about a 7 hour drive. I'm so thankful it's driving distance! Anyway, he was home for Thanksgiving and he and is fiance (we LOVE her) were able to come over to spend the day with us. I prepared a meal (Turkey, dressing, garlic and rosemary potatoes, blackeyed peas, green bean casserole, corn and cranberry sauce) and we headed over to our friends house. The provided the drinks, desserts (brownies, pumpkin pie and flan) and rolls. The meal was very yummy. Afterwards the guys and our soon to be daughter-in-law headed out for a game of volleyball (Paige is 5'11" and went to school on a volleyball scholarship. Her senior year her team won the national championship and she is now a graduate assistant coach for the team, while she gets her master's degree, which the school is also paying for.) Why the guys wanted to get stomped by her I don't know.....LOL Needless to say the team that Paige was on won and it didn't seem to matter who played with her. My very favorite moments are those when all of our children are together and having Paige here has been such a blessing to our family. She was drawing with the kids yesterday and drew a picture of all our children. It was very cute, but my favorite part was that she included herself in the picture. It was such a wonderful day.

The only negative part is that we have been fighting sickness in our home for 2 1/2 weeks now. It started with our children, then my hubby and now me. I'm fairly certain that mine is a sinus infection and I feel horrible. A "doc in the box" recently opened about 10 minutes away from my house and I do believe I will be in their parking lot when they open this morning. It's so frustrating that the only thing that seems to make me well when I get these things is a steroid shot. I've tried everything else I know to try at this point (Sinus rinses multiple times a day, herbal teas, probiotics, homemade cough syrup as well as over-the-counter meds) and I'm getting worse daily. Maybe the shot will speed up my recovery and give me the energy to get my Christmas decorations put up......