Our Thanksgiving Week, Days Six, Seven, and Eight

Thursday, November 22

Thanksgiving Day started out rather quiet and easy.  I had a delicious breakfast of warm apple pie with milk (my most favorite way to eat apple pie!)  

People in the house gradually woke up and I got started with more food prep.   Bjorn did hours of homework.  Jess made lists and strategies for their Black Friday shopping!  At some point Dick, Ray, and Ashley went over to Anthony's to check out the tree stands for deer hunting.  They also did some target practice.  Ray even helped Sophie to do some target practice!  

I made sweet potato casserole with marshmallows on top, baked corn with crumb topping,  lots of scrumptious stuffing, gravy, green bean casserole with French Fried Onions on top.   Meanwhile over at Anthony and Lori's a turkey was being smoked, and Lisa and Lori were making gourmet potatoes, cranberry applesauce, and apple crisp.  Lori had bought a pumpkin pie at a farm market the day before.  It seems our whole family likes apple desserts better than pumpkin desserts.

When we got to Anthony and Lori's around 3:30 Hunter had not yet taken a nap.  Too much excitement!   He went to the love seat in front of the fireplace and said he was going to take a nap, and Sophie tried her magic with him, but no luck!  He made it through the whole day napless, just getting crazier and crazier like kids do who get past that window of nap time!

We set everything up cafeteria style in their kitchen and ate in the dining room.  This was our gang this year.  Missing some, as always, but so very happy for all who could come.

Our beautiful hostess with the mostest!  So thankful for their spacious home to gather in.

After dinner we gathered the crew together for a group photo.  Not the greatest quality ever, but they're all there if you look hard enough!  Even Stella, haha!

Ray and Ashley and the kids left for home after our dinner.  Ray had to work early the next morning.

Bjorn and Jess left too, but not for home - for the start of Black Friday shopping!

This was our last evening with Lisa, George, and Sophie.  They had not yet gotten a tour of the improvements Anthony had made to the barn since they were last here two years ago.  So we all went out there and took the tour of all three floors.  We ended up hanging out for a while in his third floor editing studio.

One last cousin pic on Anthony's stage.  My heart melts seeing these three together.  My babies' babies.

Later when I was cleaning up the kitchen I was serenaded by Sophie playing Christmas carols from a piano book I had given her.  There is no piano or keyboard in their house, but when you're in the mood to play, anything will do, hahahaha!

Friday, November 23

I slept good that night, but we did not sleep in.  Dick's vacation was officially over and he had to go to work for the first time all week.  I headed over to Anthony and Lori's to say my goodbyes to Lisa's family.  It's never easy to see them go.  We have so much fun together.  Sophie always has tears.  Such a tender-hearted sweetheart!

Packing up for the two-day journey.

They were on their way then, and I went home to get caught up on some things.  Jess thought it was so "adorable" that Bjorn and his grandma were working at the same table!

In the evening we went to Doan's Bones BBQ for dinner.  Some of them played "UNO" and "Blink" while we waited for our food.  I had never heard of it, but it was fast and crazy!  Jess is a hard core competitor!  I'll take a slow Scrabble game any day!

Saturday, November 24

Saturday was a cold, icy, rainy, dreary day!!  Perfect for sitting at the computer to blog!  You could not have paid me to go to a Penn State football game, but when one of Dick's co-workers offered some extra tickets for a really crazy low price, Bjorn and Jess jumped at the chance!  They're young and crazy like that!  Dick gave them all the gear for staying warm and dry that he could possibly come up with.  Then we took them up to the nearby University Park Airport where a shuttle took them right to the game.  

Meanwhile Dick and I went for some groceries.  Most of the roads were fine, although the trees and bushes were coated with ice.  The scariest thing of all was when we went home via Rock Road, which travels right along Spring Creek for a little while, with no guard rails.  A car had slid and the front of it was in the creek.  YIKES!!!!  My biggest fear!  The passengers standing beside it said there was help on the way, so we kept going.  

We had been planning to meet Anthony and Lori at Berkey Creamery after the football game, but Bjorn and Jess texted that they were too cold for ice cream!  So I got out some leftover turkey and made a quick version of turkey noodle soup, my favorite Paula Dean recipe.  There were also dinner rolls left from Thanksgiving dinner, so we were good.  

Dick picked them up when the shuttle got them back to the airport.  We had a good warm meal, and then guess what?  We ended it with ice cream anyway, haha!  Ice cream sundaes with every imaginable topping.  These kids are so much fun!  I feel honored that they spend time with us grandparents!

Then they packed up and headed back to Manheim and their busy working college student lives.  

I turned my attention to Sunday morning music and thinking about more visitors coming the next day.  And before I went to bed I put a few pork roasts in my slow cooker along with onions, jerk seasoning, and coke.  More about that in my next post! 

Our Thanksgiving Week, Days Four and Five

Tuesday, November 20

On Tuesday morning I got some things done here at home - did our laundry, made a big pot of potato cheese soup, and stirred up a big batch of bran muffins.

At 1:00 we all met at Sowers Harvest Cafe for lunch.  Lori walked there from her office.  It was so full when we got there that we could not get a place where all 8 of us could sit together.   Sophie and Austin noticed that there were games there, so they sat at a two-top and played Upword as they ate their lunch.  Hunter was at daycare.  We had a good time, the food was delicious as always, and the staff is the best.

From there Lisa, George, and Sophie went on campus to reminisce and to meet the track coach.  Dick and I went to Berkey Creamery to buy some half-gallons of ice cream for our evening dessert.

Later everyone came here for dinner and the evening.

Sophie spent a lot of the evening at the piano.  

Grandpa played with Hunter.  He is starting to like drawing and writing now!  Dick said he was making M's.  

Of course the dogs got lots of attention too.  And the adults had some animated conversations as well as plenty of relaxing.

Wednesday, November 21

On Wednesday morning Dick and I hit the grocery store early.  Oh my goodness!  Such a time of looking for/remembering everything!!  I'm sure we had done 50 laps around Giant by the time we finally got to the cash register!

My projects that day were making Middle Eastern Sweet Potato and Chickpea stew for dinner and apple pies for dessert.  Ray, his girlfriend Ashley, and her kids Victoria and RJ arrived around noon.  They were glad for the leftover Potato Cheese soup and muffins from the evening before.  Ashley peeled apples for me.

Dick and Ray went to Walmart for some hunting stuff.  While they were gone I realized I had forgotten to get coconut milk for my stew, so I texted Dick and Ray to ask them if they were still at Walmart.  They were, so I asked them to get me a can of coconut milk.  Good grief.  It required at least four phone calls and multiple texts to get this accomplished!  I was trying to make pie dough, so trying to use my phone was a pain.  This is how our conversation ended:

Ray, always a comedian!

We all went over to Anthony and Lori's for dinner and fun and games.  Bjorn and Jess arrived too while we were there.   I had gotten a good laugh over Bjorn's text just as we were leaving for Anthony and Lori's:  "Leaving Manheim now.  God says 7:15."  I knew he meant GPS, but I just had to text back, "That's amazing!  I don't remember God ever telling me exactly what time I would arrive someplace."

What a fun and crazy evening we had!  Sophie took a bunch of pictures with my camera, especially close-ups.  

It was a noisy house.  Some were playing basketball and video games.

But even noisier was the game Heads Up that took place in the dining room!  Lots of screaming and yelling and laughing!

We finally hit the road for home.   So much to do when we got home!  I had put one of the turkeys in the oven before we left for Anthony and Lori's, and it needed to be taken care of.  There were also air mattresses to be blown up, sheets, blankets, and pillows to be gotten out and put in their places.  

As I carefully pulled the turkey apart, sliced the breasts, etc,  Bjorn, and especially Ray were standing nearby waiting for any bones, skin, etc I would be discarding that might still have some delicious morsels of meat on them.  You'd have thought they were starving, haha!  

I was thankful that the temp outside was very cold.  I put the turkey meat and broth in my big slow cooker and Dick put it in his truck overnight.  As you can tell, I do not serve turkey on a big platter in the middle of a table where it gets carved in front of all the guests.  We're not fancy like that.  I need my oven for so many other things on Thanksgiving day, so I like to get the turkey roasting done the day before.  Anthony always does another turkey in his smoker on Thanksgiving day.  

Well, that's all for this post.  So many more things to write about when I can find the time!

Our Thanksgiving Week, Days One, Two, and Three

It's a rainy Saturday afternoon and the first chance I've had to start writing about our wonderful Thanksgiving week.  I will probably need to break it into several posts.  

Last Thursday when I was writing, we were having a snow day.  It really WAS a snow day.  Our area got about a foot of snow!  The schools, even Penn State, were closed both Thursday and Friday.   It was so beautiful, and by Friday afternoon our roads were nice and bare.  

The timing was perfect!  Lisa, George, and Sophie left Tampa on Friday and drove to Columbia, SC.  I told them when they left their hotel on Saturday morning that they should let me know when they first see snow.  Around 4 PM Sophie sent me a picture saying, "I got to touch snow for the first time ever!"  And Lisa posted pictures of Nilla Bean and Stella going to the bathroom in the snow for the first time!

Saturday, November 17

I had made sloppy joe meat and was making molasses ginger snaps at Anthony and Lori's place when they finally arrived around 7:30 PM.  What a noisy, exciting time!  We had a WONDERFUL evening catching up.   Hunter gradually made friends with the dogs, and Austin and Sophie connected on their iPads.  The new board games, I guess!

Sunday, November 18

On Sunday morning Dick and I went to GBRV first and then to Calvary.  We knew the rest were all coming too, but we didn't see them before we went into the service.  Dick and I crawled past two people sitting at the aisle to get to our seats, leaving an empty seat between them and Dick.  He put his coat on that seat.  After a while a guy crawled past those two people to take that empty seat, so Dick moved his coat.  After the service was over and we were walking out we suddenly noticed that George was walking in front of us.  Later we CRACKED UP when we found out the it was he that sat next to Dick and we never even looked at him, hahahaha!!!  He said he was thinking, "Wow, I guess they're really into this service!"   What friendly people we are.  Not!  Unbelievable!

Anthony, Lori, and Lisa had sat out in the lobby where you can watch the service on a screen.  We decided after the service that it was a great time and place to take pictures.  We will treasure these for sure!

There were lots of leftovers of things I'd made earlier in the week, so we had those for lunch.  Then it was time to try some sledding.  Not me, of course!!  I went out long enough to get some pics.  Sophie is quite a trooper.  She learned how to sled down a hill, decided she liked going down on her belly the best (!), she hiked in the snow and was out there for hours!!  Even the dogs had a lot of fun running in the snow!

Lisa and I went inside and "chilled" by the fireplace.  It was so perfectly relaxing.  Anthony was on the sofa at the other end of the room, and we had some good laughs.  I just love being with my children.

We had planned to go to our favorite BBQ, Doan's Bones, for dinner that evening, so we loaded up into two vehicles, went over the mountain, drove up, and discovered they had already closed!!  So we headed back over the mountain and via texting back and forth, decided to go to Plaza Mexicana Grill instead.  That was a perfect choice.  We had a great time and scrumptious food.

Monday, November 19

Dick took vacation from work Monday through Thursday, so on Monday we went over to Anthony and Lori's bright and early to load up Lisa's family, including the dogs, into our van for a day trip down home.   Our first destination was Richland Christian Home to visit Grandma Mary.  It was a short, very sweet visit, including lots of laughter as is always the case when visiting her.  We just couldn't believe how much taller Sophie is than her great grandma now!!

We visited in her room for a while, then she took us on a tour of the home.  It's such a lovely, comfortable place with a beautiful view of farmland.  

When we went out to the car we took some pictures in front of that country view. 

Our next destination was Grandpa Stauffer and Arlene's for lunch.  She had delicious home-made chicken corn soup.   We made sure to get a group picture afterward, as well as a four-generation picture.

Sophie was so intrigued by the antique pump organ.  She had never seen anything like it.  I took this video too soon, because she kept working at it and working at it and eventually got better than when I first videoed her.  

After we left their place we decided to go to the nearby city of Lebanon to track down our favorite mail carrier!  Thankfully he took time to check his phone and told us his location.  We put it in our googlemaps and we found him!  What a sweet, hilarious little sidewalk visit!  

We were hoping to see Jenn and the kids too, but they would not be getting home from school and work till much later, and Lisa's family was eager to get back to Anthony and Lori's.  They were really tired of being in a car, understandably so!  Two days in a car to get up here and two more days in a car later in the week to get back home.  

Since I of course had not cooked anything that day, we picked up salad and pizza before we got back to Anthony and Lori's.   Here's a cute picture of Hunter and the pups from that evening.  Looks like they're wanting some Doritos too!

So that was our first three days together.  Much more to come!

Birthday fun, wonderful grandma time, snow!

I have an unexpected Thursday morning at home, so now I have time to update this blog.  Going right along with the rainy summer and fall that we have had here in PA, we are continuing with the frozen kind of precipitation.  We are having snow and are expected to get sleet and freezing rain, so my morning Bible study at Calvary was cancelled, schools are cancelled, and I already cancelled my choir practice for this evening.  It's nice to have a day at home and I'm so thankful I do not need to drive.  Ice is no joke!  So far it's beautiful out there.  

Last Thursday was my 67th birthday.  I had lots of birthday greetings on Facebook which made me feel really happy, but there was no time to celebrate that evening because of choir practice.  Did I ever write here on my blog about the crazy line-up of our family birthdays?  Back when my kids were young I used to have a Monday evening meeting that I attended.  One year I noticed that it seemed to often interfere with our family birthdays which I always made a big deal about - favorite food, favorite home made birthday cake, etc.  I looked at the calendar and was amazed to see that every one of our birthdays (Dick, me, Lisa, Anthony, Jeremy) had been on a Monday that year!  And so it is!  This was our year for Thursday birthdays, next year we'll have Friday birthdays, etc.  Isn't that crazy??  It gets off kilter on leap years, but then the next year it's back on track again!

Friday was Sam's birthday, and we have always tried to do something together on or around our birthdays. This year Sammy had off school on that day, and Sam had requested off work for Friday and Saturday. So on Friday morning I drove down to Lebanon.  It rained hard the entire 2.5 hour drive.  Ugh.  At least it wasn't snow, I kept telling myself.

As soon as I got there Sammy gave me the card he had made for me.  How precious is this??

And this picture.  That's me in the middle between Bianca and Sammy.  He didn't know how to spell Mahna, lol!  He made up that name for me before he knew how to spell!

And this activity.   Along the left side are items that I needed to find embedded in the picture.  How creative is he????

Bianca wanted to take pictures with my camera.  Here's a shot she took of the birthday people!

We decided that on this rainy day a movie was the best option.  I had some Fandango gift cards to use up, and we were able to get tickets for all four of us for a total of $2.30!  We went to see Dr. Suess's The Grinch.  We laughed a lot, ate a lot of popcorn, and had a great time.

That evening Ray, Ashley, and RJ came over and we had pizza, birthday cake, and ice cream.  And lots of fun, of course.

Of course, all the kids care about is getting a piece of cake with a whole lot of icing!

Later Sammy remembered that he and daddy were going to make cookies together.  So I kind of helped the process along (pre-made dough), but they formed the balls.  The house smelled good.  A great activity on a cold, rainy night!

On Saturday morning Sammy was in the mood for putting up Christmas decorations and lights in the basement. So I helped him with that.  I forgot to take any pictures!!  That night I asked Sam to take a picture and send it to me.  I love this so much!

Later we went to nearby Golden Corral and had their incredible lunch buffet.  We will definitely go there again.

Then we went to Lebanon Valley Mall.  First we had to dig out all our coins to throw into the fountain along with our wishes.

Then we went to the fantastic play area at the mall.  The kids had a blast and there were even sofas for the adults to relax on while the kids played.  Must have been designed by a tired mom, hahahaha!

I had been hoping to get back home before dark (which comes SO EARLY now), so after a while we had to say our goodbyes.  What a fun two days we had together!

Look how these kids have grown!  I posted this picture from several years ago to honor Jenn on Veteran's Day.  How precious!

On Sunday morning we went to our service at GBRV.  I wish you could have heard the congregation sing "Let There Be Peace on Earth."  It was so powerful and touching.

From there we went to Calvary's service and brought the boys home with us afterward.  We had pizza and chicken tenders for lunch, then Hunter went down for a nap and Grandpa and I napped in the living room while Austin played games on his iPad.  When he needed to recharge it he decided he was in the mood for a game of Chutes and Ladders.  A bit below his level, but we had fun with several rounds of it.  Such a crazy, unpredictable game where no amount of strategy works!  At one point when he landed on the same square as me he tried to get his person to balance on top of mine.

Hunter woke up happy and full of fun and enthusiasm.  I think Anthony is raising his own sax player for his future band, hahahaha!

Showing his dance moves, lol!

Later we went to Weis Markets to meet Lori and Anthony, since we both needed groceries.  It was already dark, but I just had to take this video as Hunter sang Old McDonald in the car.  MELT MY HEART!!  He tried to add more and more animals and their sounds even after I stopped the video.  

Tomorrow morning Lisa, George, and Sophie, along with their two dogs Nilla Bean and Stella, will be starting their road trip to State College!!  They plan to arrive sometime Saturday.  It's been two years since they were up here and I am just a little bit excited!!!!  They'll be staying until the day after Thanksgiving.  Woohoo!!!

Sophie has seen snow only once in her almost 14 years, so Lisa wondered if we could keep this snow till they get here.  I have a feeling that will not be a problem.  I don't think there are any milder temperatures in the forecast until after they go back home.  They will get a taste of winter for sure.