Forgot this one!

Couldn't leave this one out. The joy of teaching kindergarten!

Thanksgiving

It occurred to me when I woke up today that it was almost Christmas and I still haven’t blogged about Thanksgiving! Whoops…I guess time has gotten away from me and I am a little behind in my chronicles! Thanksgiving was a little different this year in that it was the first year that we did not get to celebrate it with our families. However it still was a wonderful day with special friends and reflection on the many blessings of this past year. The weekend before Thanksgiving I was able to go home for a short visit. Unfortunately I had a somewhat traumatic experience when my flight was canceled and I was stranded at the Shreveport airport. Thankfully my sweet husband came to my rescue and left work immediately because his wife had an “emergency”. He tried to cheer me up by taking me to see New Moon that night (which ended up being terrible). Apparently my brain was not thinking when I agreed to this because it was opening weekend so we were surrounded by teeny boppers screaming and crying and we had to sit on the VERY front row. Oh well, it was definitely a night to remember. I finally was able to get a flight and arrived in Greenville late the next day to catch the tail end of the Pirate’s game. I was very proud of my mom who drove all by herself to the airport to get me and didn’t even get lost! The next several days were spent seeing lots of friends, hanging out with family, and of course eating enormous amounts of food. I headed back to Shreveport on Wednesday to see my sweet husband who had been working the whole time I was gone as well as our wonderful friends the Coxes, who were coming to celebrate Thanksgiving with us. We started off the visit by eating at Strawn’s Eat Too shop. This is a little local place that has been featured numerous times in Southern Living Magazine….very yummy pies! After that me and Marianne left the kids with the guys and stocked up on some groceries. I was thrilled to have Marianne around because I had never cooked a Thanksgiving meal and I knew I would need some guidance! I woke up the next morning to an amazing sight. Marianne (in her pajamas) was leaning all on that raw turkey with her hands pulling all sorts of stuff out. To quote her “I already took the neck off. I’m just looking for the giblets!” I decided right then that if I ever had to do that I would never eat another bit of turkey again. The morning passed quickly with cooking and Krispy Kreme donuts. The food turned out great and the only catastrophes were Marianne blowing up an egg in the microwave and me pouring gravy off the stove onto my hand. Ouch! The egg turned out to be a big blessing for me because Marianne felt the need to clean my entire microwave. What an awesome friend! Overall I was pretty pleased with how our meal turned out. That afternoon we went to a local park. The kids and Joe played football while Marianne and I tried to walk off the calories from lunch. The next couple days were filled with fun times: shopping at the boardwalk, Bionicle movie dates with Hayden, baking cookies with Madeline, decorating the house for Christmas, and quality time with friends. Thanks so much for coming Cox family. We love you! As we went around the table on Thanksgiving Day and spoke about what we were most thankful for this year I was reminded of how many blessings we have been given. Specifically I am thankful for the health and relationships I have with my family, wonderful friends, being settled in our new house, and Ryan matching into a specialty that he is excited about. This year has definitely been one of the craziest yet, and as it winds down I am so grateful for all that God has blessed us with as well as how He is shaping our lives according to His plan. Happy Thanksgiving!