Thanksgiving 2008

(a few of the Thanksgiving crafts seen around our house during the month of November)

A fantastic Thanksgiving weekend. The kids enjoyed Thanksgiving morning over at Grams and Papa's house again this year...Papa likes (?) to fix Swedish pancakes for all the grandkids while they watch the Macy's Parade on TV (for some reason they decided not to include the sleepover the night before as part of the tradition this year...ha:)) We know the kids enjoyed themselves, anyways.

TEC and I stayed back home to prepare our contributions for the afternoon meal ahead and to get some packing done for our weekend at the cabin. At about noon we picked up the kids, all 3 of them smelling sweetly of maple syrup, and headed over to Val's house, where we spent the holiday with my parents and sisters. It was a fun day--really good to be all together again, which doesn't happen nearly enough. The food was delicious...my mom and sister took on most of the meal. I made jell0 and spinach salads and tried to help out with the rest. The kids had a great time with their cousins--RVC and SCC enjoyed dancing around in fancy dressups to the music from Mama Mia (SCC's orange disco leotard was particularly appropriate).

We played a few rounds of "Apples to Apples" with almost everyone before Tracey and Christian and my parents headed home. Then Val, Ben, TEC and I played a game of Settlers. We got the kids into their jammies, drove home to drop off our leftovers and pick up the dog, and then headed up to the cabin (we had considered hitting the midnight sales at the Park City outlets, but it didn't work out...after reading about all the craziness in the paper, though, we realized that we are not cut out for after-Thanksgiving Day shopping, so it worked out for the best).

Our time up at the cabin was relaxing. I did some reading, some game playing, TEC did of course more game playing. We woke up to a little bit of snow Friday morning, but not enough for sledding. New this trip was a special movie night. TEC had a projector from work and set us up with a viewing of Enchanted, big-screen style on one of the walls up in the loft. It was a great time.

(Photo: the cousins with their blankets...all made with love by Grams)

So much to be thankful for this time of year. Here's to a peaceful month ahead.