Happy Thanksgiving!

Actually, that was last week, but why quibble? I'm thankful this week, too. We went to Raleigh, NC last week to celebrate Thanksgiving with my family. Since we won't see them at Christmas, we celebrated that, too. We call it 'Thanksmas'. Creative, eh? We had a wonderful time of yummy food, fellowship, and presents.

The first night we arrived, we wanted to go to 'Full Moon'. This little mom & pop place has some of the BEST calzones ever! However, we didn't get there in time, so the fam went without me! (*SOB*) The day after Thanksgiving, Amy and I got up at 4:20 AM to go shopping! Our first (and very unfortunate) stop was at Circuit City. Might I recommend that you NEVER go there the day after Thanksgiving? It took us 10 minutes to get the things we wanted and 1 1/2 hrs to check out! Now, you might expect the lines to be long at a time like this, and that was fine. But the ridiculous thing was how long it took to check each person out. Unbelievable! The employees did not know the meaning of the word 'hurry'. They moved at a snails pace and acted like they didn't know there were 30 people in line behind the one they were helping. It was very frustrating. We finally did leave, though, and stopped at Brueggar's Bagels, a place I haven't eaten in for at least 12 years. Yum! Then we visited six more stores. Yes, six. But, it was fun. We found some great deals.

For lunch we tried 'Full Moon' again but it was closed until 4. *Sigh* At 2 the whole family went to Andrea's new house. It's really cute, has hardwood floors, giant old trees, a great shed and a large fenced in backyard. Back home, we played Balderdash for a while, then realized that we didn't have time to go to 'Full Moon' for dinner (naturally) because we had to get to church half an hour away. We visited Dad's new Messianic Congregation, 'Shalom Peniel'. The kid's were surprisingly well behaved and really enjoyed walking around waving flags during worship. We were able to have communion as a family, which is very rare. I whispered a quick reminder to the kids what communion was all about. Afterwards, Roan asked me, 'When did Jesus die?' Uh oh! Looks like I had some 'splainin to do! LOL

Saturday dawned bright and beautiful. And my wonderful husband volunteered to take ALL FIVE kids to Burger King so that I could FINALLY go to 'Full Moon'! Amy, Mom, and Dad came, too. The calzone was wonderful as expected, and we had a beautiful time with each other. Mom and Dad told us a bit about their trip to Argentina, too. Dad also told us a lesson he learned from God that we have been blessed, not because of our own accomplishments, but because of the righteousness of our father, just like Solomon was blessed in spite of his sin because of his father, David. He was particularly moved thinking about his own dad.

Saturday afternoon, we got a babysitter! All of the grownups (even numbers, too! Hi Jerry!) went to see the movie, 'Stranger Than Fiction' starring Will Ferrell. It was very good. Then we went to 'Little Italy' for dinner.(Very delicious!) This was mom's choice as we were celebrating her 60th birthday coming up in a few weeks while we were all together. We even got her a birthday Tirimisu! Happy Birthday Mom!
We love you!

We had to leave first thing Sunday morning to get back in time for Alyssa's first Honor Choir Concert. But, I'll save that for the next post!