As I said at the end of my previous post, Hunter had a fever the week of Thanksgiving and wasn't allowed to be at daycare, so I took care of him Monday afternoon and Tuesday morning. He was already feeling better on Tuesday, but had lots of congestion, and a new lower tooth!
I left around noon to drive to Reading to pick up Destiny. (It takes about 3 hours or so one way.) When I got to her mom's house her beautiful school pictures were on the kitchen table. I LOVE them!!
We got home right after 8 pm, which was my goal, because I really wanted to hear Jordan Smith singing on the Voice. He is getting so many opportunities! Last evening he sang at the CMA Christmas special, tomorrow evening he will be singing at the tree lighting in NYC, and he's on a tour across the country with Amy Grant and Michael W. Smith. Unbelievable just a year after he won!
Table games are always on the agenda when Destiny comes. This time we played UNO. I think we have two or three decks all together, and they were not sorted well at all. We were cracking up when we kept pulling REVERSE and SKIP several times in succession and we had just two players!
On Wednesday we did a huge grocery shopping trip. She was such a great help, especially when we needed to load all those bags into the car, then fill our water jugs, then go home and carry everything in. I was so thankful she was with me.
The week before she had posted the "Tasty" recipe video for Buffalo Chicken Pull Apart Bread. She made it when we got home.
At first we weren't sure how well it had turned out - I remembered the saying that so often applies, "Results may vary." But actually, when we warmed it up on Thanksgiving Day when everyone was hungry and the meal was not yet ready, this was a really big hit!
At the same time I was making Stuffed Meatball Soup, enough for us and for Anthony and Lori. We had enough time to take it over to their place. But as is the case too many times, I was going way over the speed limit on Fox Hollow Road. Sometime I'll take a picture to show you who are unfamiliar with it, how wide and relatively straight it is. NO ONE drives 35. Except me now, because I'm scared. I'm sure the drivers behind me are always swearing at me. I was going 55 that day. This is the same road where I got pulled over the other summer on the way home from Bjorn's graduation at 1:00 AM!! That time I got just a warning, but this time I was cited for disobeying a traffic sign to the tune of $170.00, but thankfully no points on my record. He asked me where I was headed. I told him I was hurrying to take dinner to my son's family near Pine Grove Mills, then I had to hurry back because I had to play piano and direct the choir at our Thanksgiving Eve service. I was hoping he would give me just a warning since I'm a nice church lady, hahahaha!! But no luck!
So we did indeed get to our Thanksgiving Eve service. The choir sang the Dennis Jernigan song "Thank You." Ever since I first sang in a combined choir at the Worship Center in Lancaster in 2003, I get emotional when singing, "For all You have done I will thank You, for all that You're going to do, for all that You've promised and all that You are is all that has carried me through. Jesus, I thank you! And I thank you, thank you, Lord!!" Destiny sang with the choir too, which was so special.
After we came home from church Destiny made pumpin pies. I have no idea how I did not even get a picture of them. They were really, really creamy spicy and good.
On Thursday morning I did a lot of prep at our house first, then went over to Lori's kitchen to finish in the afternoon. I had lots of help.
People were beginning to arrive, but not nearly as many as last year! I thought we'd have 14 compared to the 25 last year. But it turned out that Lori's brother and family were not coming after all. So I had prepared WAY to much food!!!
Everyone was looking forward to target practice again. Destiny took pictures for me. I think Sam was probably explaining the safety rules of watching to Sammy. If he did not observe them he would be sent in to Mahna!!
Austin has a BB gun and is very familiar with the rules.
Selfie??
The house was smelling GOOD when they came inside! Two turkeys, mine roasted and Anthony's smoked, crescent rolls, gourmet potatoes made with extra sharp white cheddar (they were in great demand!), yam pudding, stuffing, baked corn, green bean casserole, lots of gravy, cranberry applesauce, pumpin pie and ice cream.
Thank God for comfy couches when the food coma hits!
We did a game of REAL Scrabble, as opposed to electronic. We decided it was ok to google to find out if words we wanted to use were acceptable or not. Well, just let me say, I won the game without Google!! (I confess I'm a Scrabble addict. I play on my phone against the computer every night before I go to sleep.) Not having to wait for the opponent to take a turn (because the computer doesn't have to sit and think first, hahaha) is so great!
The kids went down to the basement. Sammy was proud that he was lifting weights!
I believe this was a Pogo stick that Austin was using.
Bianca loved the train table.
We went to our house later in the evening. Ray and Thyda stayed in Lori and Anthony's lovely guest apartment instead of sleeping on my sofas as they always do. But I missed having them here. He and Sam are always so funny together.
I helped Destiny with a homework project. Of course it was way too late when I went to bed, but it's hard to miss out on being with everyone when they're here.
Many more pictures and stories on my next post!
