A Texas Thanksgiving

As I mentioned in the last blog - we headed SOUTH to Texas for the US Thanksgiving on November 24th and returned the 3rd of December. We arrived in Grande Prairie last night and then drove home in snow. We had actually gotten more snow while we were out of town. I shoveled the driveway today and it had about 4-5 inches but there were some deeper drifts around the house and yard.

We stayed with Matt & Heather the first four days in Texas and Paul & Laura and boys joined us for Thanksgiving day. We had turkey, dressing, gravy, mashed potatoes, ham, sweet potato souffle, green bean casserole and Mammaw's rolls (but they were not as good as hers). We had pumpkin pie, coconut pie, chocolate pie and pecan pie. Some of us drank eggnog and Laura, Heather and I drank coffee with peppermint whipping cream - YUM! Before we ate we headed off to the Old Alton Bridge in Corinth and took a million and one pictures.... ok, maybe not that many but poor Matt did not get a day off. I hope he sends us some real soon. Pictured above is Luke (11) , Peyton (7), Jacob (15), Cole (9) & Caleb (13) on the bridge. This was taken on Laura's camera and I emailed it to myself.

That night Matt & Heather went to her parents and Paul & Laura went to the Marriott in Ft Worth and Ray and I had the grandboys all to ourselves. We got us all jammies and took more pictures - the boys were real troopers about the picture taking. We got a gingerbread kit with 5 small houses and each boy decorated one. Each house had its own personality. We watched Elf and had a discussion on families afterwards. Ray, Luke, Cole and Peyton played Monopoly and Jake & Caleb got into the electronic games. I was the banker. It was such a fun evening and I will remember it for a long time.

Saturday Matt drove us down to Arlington and he, Paul & Ray played golf. I shopped at Kohls (I did this several times while there) and rounded up some items for our Christmas program. I got the 3 gifts for the Wise Men to take to Jesus and then tried to figure out how to get them back to Canada!! (They all made it.) We ate dinner that evening at Red Lobster - yummy cheese biscuits and coconut shrimp. On Sunday we worshipped at LABC and got to see a lot of our friends. We enjoyed our time in Adult I Sunday School the most. It was great to visit with such sweet folks that we love. Sunday night we attended a 60th birthday party for Rick Hale and got to see a lot of our friends.

On Monday LaRue had made me a dental appointment and Dr. Wallace was kind enough to fix the little chips in one of my front teeth! I enjoyed working in his office prior to moving to Canada. After the appointment Laura, LaRue, Emily, Kathy and I had lunch at Fuzzy's (a new Mexican place).

We tried to take the boys to school as much as we could to be with them. It is fun to pray with them while driving to their schools. Jake & Caleb were about a foot taller than me which was a shock - just since we saw them in March!! Monday night we drove back to Corinth and surprized Cole & Peyton and ordered pizza. The look on their face when we rang the doorbell was priceless. We played Clue and watched Matt win both games! It was so good to say goodnight prayers with the boys. As we drove back to Arlington we listened to the Saints beat the Patriots - yeah.... I bet Joni (my sister-in-law) loved it! She is such a Saint fan.

Tuesday we picked up Janice & Max at the airport (usually they are picking us up but they celebrated Thanksgiving in California with one of their sons). We had been using one of their cars since they were gone.

Tuesday night we enjoyed a Braums sunday...I had a Pecan Caramel Cinnamon Crum Cake Sunday....

Wednesday we got to visit with Linda & Larry Carter for a while in their home. We would have loved to have seen others too but our time was so precious and we wanted to be with the family as much as possible. Caleb had a basketball game on Wednesday night and we were glad we could watch him play. We told them goodbye after the game and spent the night at the Grabers. It was soooooooooo hard to say bye - we do not know when we will see them again.

Max took us to the airport on Thursday morning and we got home around 8:30pm.

I am getting ready for the pastors/wives that will be in our home tomorrow evening. Ray has helped me clean some (mainly putting away all the costumes, etc for the Christmas program that were laying EVERYWHERE in the living room) and I made pralines, vinegar cookies and fudge. Also made a run to the catholic church to pick up a bread order, visited the dollar store and bargain store for last minute details for the party and the program and then went to the grocery store. You ALWAYS have to go to the grocery store after being gone on a trip. The roads were quite slippery.

Ray has a couple to baptize this Sunday and that will be an exciting time for us. Ron & Kim Hart have been a part of our church since we have been here. Ray performed their wedding on the 7th of November. We will practice for our Christmas program and then have college/singles on Sunday night ( I will prepare the 7 bean soup recipe but since one of the girls is a vegan I will leave the meat out of some of the soup). Off and running here we go. Can't wait to see what all God has in store for us and our church. He is so awesome and as we celebrate His birth I pray that each of us will make more room in our lives for Him to live through us. MERRY CHRISTMAS Hope