Thanksgiving

(I'm a little late in posting a blog about Thanksgiving. Oh well, sometimes life is like that.) When I think about Thanksgiving, I generally picture a Norman Rockwell version of an extended family sitting around a large dining table with Grandma in her apron smiling and Grandpa standing at the end of the table carving a large brown roasted turkey...or maybe the family with heads reverently bowed in a prayer of Thanksgiving, which is the purpose of the holiday. I'm posting photos of the Thanksgiving we had this year- not at all like the images in my mind. But we did enjoy the holiday and traveled safely and are VERY grateful that the Lord heard and answered our prayers for everyone to remain healthy and to have decent weather and no traveling mishaps. My oldest sister lives in Alabama and her older son and family live right next door. We stayed at my sister's house but some of the time was spent next door. This photograph is one of the favorite activities of the children. You can see the mothers (my beautiful daughters and daughter-in-law) watching in the background as the children show their amazing engineering skills in building a railroad. Tanis is 14 and was the oldest but he was really wonderful in NOT acting the usual part of the sullen teenager. He was very patient and caring with his younger cousins. His superior track-building abilities were appreciated! The other favored activity was in the living room just inside the above lovely sunroom. As you can see, the boys were all captivated by video games on the large television set.

We did manage to eat a fairly traditional meal- and LOTS of it! This is Carol's house (she's the one standing in the middle of the picture) on Thanksgiving day. I don't know that I could begin to remember all of the foods laid out there. Her family was so generous in their offering. We didn't supply anything but appetites! The two turkeys were deep-fried. We had southern dumplings along with the mashed potatoes and stuffing. We had quite an assortment of pasta-type salads. Angela did make a couple of pecan pies to go with the other yummy desserts, which we had to eat a couple of hours after the main part of the meal due to lack of stomach space. So the meal wasn't quite the old-fashioned meal like 50 years ago- but we did say a prayer of thanksgiving before eating. We were together as a loving, extended family. We had a wonderful feast! I think we were all grateful and happy to be together living in a land of prosperity and freedom. The next photo was one I wanted to include because I thought it was cute. As we traveled back to Ohio, I turned around to see 3 of my grandsons all sucking on lollipops, looking at a book together. I so love my family!