Thanksgiving Break at Home

Last Wednesday saw me heading home after Biomechanics. Classes officially ended for the break at noon, but as it was my only class that morning, I escaped as soon as it was over. =)

I was blessed to be able to bring a friend home with me for Thanksgiving! Grace is from Michigan, which was too far for her to go to over the short break, so my family adopted her for a few days. She is also a theatre freshman, and it has been fun to get to know her over the past few months. We actually auditioned at the same time last February, and became quick friends when coming to college in August.

The time at home was wonderful! Lydia and Elijah also came home from their colleges, and it was great to spend time with them and with my parents and Jubilee, as well as my sister Maria and her family who came for a few days. We played a lot of games and cooked and ate a lot! As I set about making pumpkin bread soon after I arrived, Lydia remarked that I had already started cooking though I hadn't even been home for half an hour! I enjoyed making a lot of delicious dishes and relished the taste of homemade food. Grace and I also spent time studying, taking off Thanksgiving day, but spending a 2-5 or even more hours studying on the other days. Finals start tomorrow, so we wisely began learning the material ahead of time.

Thanksgiving day was relaxing yet full. Soon after awakening I began helping with the food. There were a lot of things to be made!

Mom did a lot, and Lydia, Grace, Jubilee, and Dad all helped in some way. We took breaks to play Dutch Blitz as the dishes simmered, and before we knew it, the time for the big meal had come.

"Can we eat yet? It smells so good!"

The sumptuous feast waiting to be devoured. We had family traditional dishes: turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes, gravy, cooked cranberries, corn, green bean casserole, and kressant rolls. Yum! We all ate a lot, and enjoyed leftovers that night and the next day.

The desserts were delicious. We had pumpkin, pecan, and blueberry pie, sweet soup (a Norwegian recipe), and turkey cookies that the children helped make the night before.

We had two full tables, but not as big as some years, as we missed having Luke and his family and Miriam and John. There were 19 of us all together - family plus Grace and friends of the family, an older lady and a mom with her four children and mother.

After eating around 2 p.m., we spent the day cleaning up, relaxing, playing games, singing and sharing, and giving foot massages. A Thanksgiving day assignment from our theatre professor for Biomechanics class was to give everyone at our Thankgsiving table a foot massage. Grace and I split up the people and then gave one to each other, and everyone appreciated it, though some were a little wary of us touching their feet.

On Friday we celebrated my neice Lisa Beth's second birthday. Her birthday was acutally on Thanksgiving day, but she didn't know any different celebrating the next day. :-)

Here's the happy girl. We had fun playing with balloons after lunch! She was so cute with her giggles and shock when some of them popped! She has gotten big so quickly, it seems. How the time has flown!

Saturday I began to come down with a cold, but thankfully it hasn't gotten too bad. I am very grateful for the fact that I hadn't gotten sick at all this fall before this, and that this one is pretty mild. We played games, studied, Grace and I went for a walk in the woods, and we all went to see "Bolt" in the movie theater. It was cute but rather unrealistic. After church on Sunday, we drove back to college.

This week has been very hectic, with the last day of classes yesterday and finals starting tomorrow. I'm taking a break from my busy day of studying to post this. I have 3 finals on Wednesday, 2 on Thursday, 1 on Saturday, and 1 on Monday. After that, I am DONE with my first semester and will head home for a nice, long Christmas break! In the meantime, I'm making sure that I know all the information I need for the tests.

I hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving and are having a great week. As for me, I need to go back to the books.