Thanksgiving and so much more...

First things first, we had a different Thanksgiving this year - our 1st Thanksgiving in Oregon. As far as my memory will take me, I believe this was the 1st time in 51 years that I did not spend the day visiting, laughing and feasting with my extended family.
We wanted the day to be memorable and so a few weeks ago we (mainly me) started to brainstorm different scenarios. Should we go to the coast for a few days (Amy had a 10 day school break!?!), fly to Las Vegas (absurdly cheap airfare from here), drive to the Bay Area to visit with Daniel and some of Dan's transplanted GE friends, stay home and volunteer at a Mission/Soup Kitchen or stay home and open our home to friends and neighbors? Well, we ended up picking the final choice and we are glad we did.

Our neighbors, the Deenik's, moved here 2 years ago from South Africa and as they were "familyless" they joined us. Then we invited a transplanted family from California who we know from our church small group. They are facing some tough financial times and shared at our last meeting that they were not sure they could afford the expense of a Thanksgiving dinner... so our group numbered 10. Dan's turkey was scrumptious, once again, and we enjoyed getting to know these special people. We are grateful for our family, our health, and all that God has given us. Hardly a day goes by that Dan and I don't express amazement and wonder at the fabulous natural beauty of our surroundings. Even Amy is coming around to appreciating our new hometown and all that it affords us. She is especially loving her ballet studies. This coming weekend she will perform in her 1st Nutcracker Ballet. She will dance in the "Waltz of the Flowers" and dance the part of a rat, as well. It should be very exciting!

The next major event that occurred Thanksgiving weekend involved the green and the orange. The 112th Civil War! I'll let Dan fill you in on that exciting event: This year the "hated" Beavers needed to beat my beloved Ducks in order to go to the Rosebowl. They had beaten USC earlier, their defense was ranked just out of the top 10 in the country, and the game was in Corvallis so there was a lot of trepidation on the part of Ducks fans. Well, we scored 65 points to beat them in a rout. Long runs and lots of TD passes made it really exciting to watch. What fun!

Well, I went against my better judgment and got the house decorated for Christmas before December 1st. I usually wait until the 1st weekend in December but this year we will be busy with 3 performances of the Nutcracker. So, Amy and I decked the halls and rejoiced in seeing our beloved Christmas decorations. As some of you may remember, we arrived in OR last year on December 19th and our plan was to bring only the essential tree ornaments and Christmas stockings in the car with us. So that, even if we didn't have furniture we could still get a tree and hang our stockings by the fireplace. Well, we left that carefully packed box in the basement and the new homeowners had to ship it to us by UPS. Needless to say, it didn't reach us until January. Anyway, Amy was especially anxious to decorate this year and we had great fun. Here's Amy on her way out the door for school putting the 1st ornament on our advent tree calendar.