Our Thanksgiving week

I've been back home over a week already!  We've had some really warm weather, but lots of cloudiness.  I haven't been able to get many sunrise pictures.  However, Thanksgiving morning was quite beautiful.

It was good to be back at church again on Sunday.  As planned, we had our Thanksgiving service that morning instead of having a Thanksgiving Eve service as usual.  My amazing flute player, Brenna, joined us for the first time since March.  It was absolutely wonderful to hear her again!  Here's a video of our prelude, Amazing Grace.  

We came home and watched Calvary's service online.  Then we hit the road.  Dick had found someone on Facebook Marketplace that had a hunting suit just like he wanted.  He agreed on a certain exit along 322 and a time to meet him.  

And I had realized that I'd left my very favorite apron at Jeremy and Mike's.  It's the one I had gotten at the little flea market next to Sam's place in September.   I wanted to go there to get another one.  And of course I was hoping to get to say Hi to Sam and the kids!

As it turned out, the hunting suit fit great, and Dick was a happy buyer.  But the flea market did not have those aprons anymore.  Bummer!  Jeremy said he'll mail mine to me. 

Sam had just taken the kids to Jenn's place and was on his way to watch football at someone else's house, so we didn't get to see him.  But we went to Jenn's and got to see the kids for a bit anyway.  So fun!!!   They had just taken all their pumpkins, including a lot of those tiny ones, out behind the shed, because they were decorating for Christmas.  Bianca wanted me to see the pumpkins, and she had a name for every one of them - at least twenty of them, hahaha!  She's too much!  It was so great to see them.

We have had a Secret Sister program at GBRV this past year.  We were planning to have our Christmas gathering on Monday evening, and we would have revealed who our Secret Sisters were.  But due to the rapidly rising COVID cases in our area,  it was cancelled.  So on Sunday morning I received some gifts from my friend Bonnie, who revealed that she had been my Secret Sister this past year.  One of her gifts was this beautiful cactus, which has begun blooming this week.  It makes me so happy when I'm working at my sink.  

Another thing that made me so happy this week was a card that Austin emailed me.  I'm quite sure it's my favorite card ever.  I had tears as I read it.  

Our Thanksgiving plans were very different from normal.  We felt that we simply could not risk having a bunch of people together in our little house at this time.  So instead, I cooked all my regular Thanksgiving food on Tuesday and Wednesday, and I put portions into containers I had gotten at Sam's Club.  With magic marker I put on the lids the name of the person who would get it, and also the contents of the container.  There were some containers with turkey, stuffing, and gravy.  Others had green bean casserole, gourmet potatoes, and sweet potato pudding.  Others had lots of baked corn, always the favorite dish.  Still others had apple pie, and the smallest ones had cranberry sauce.  

One of our deliveries was going to be to Bjorn and Jess's apartment near Manheim.  They are actually in Colorado this week, but they really wanted my food, so they gave us the combination for their door and asked us to put it in the fridge.  As I was getting dressed on Thanksgiving morning, I got a text from Bjorn.  "Happy Thanksgiving!  No Penn State game this year, and no cookies from my Grandma's cookie jar."  I had thought of making cookies, but hadn't.  When I read that I decided I could quickly do a small batch of Peanut Blossoms.  I didn't have any Hershey Kisses, but chocolate chips work too.  We kept them on the cookie sheets, covered them with wax paper, and put them on the floor of the van to cool as we drove, hahaha!  I brought extra containers along to put them in at each stop.  

Grandma's Thanksgiving food wagon on its way!

Our first stop was at Ray's apartment in Lebanon.   He met us in the parking lot.  I filled a grocery bag with all his containers of food, and he put it right into his car.  He was going to his bio mom's house in Lancaster.  He said the cookies would never make it there.  He would eat them all on the way, hahaha!!  We always had to keep him from eating all the cookies when everyone was here.   It was fun to chat and catch up a bit before we went our separate ways.  

From there we went to Bjorn and Jess's apartment.  I had fully intended to take a picture of my food containers in their fridge to send to them, but I completely forgot.  

From their place we went to Dick's brother Fred's house.  Dick had ordered some socks for Fred, and we delivered those. 

Then we went back toward home.   And of course, on the way we had a very important stop at Sam's.   The kids were riding their scooters in the parking lot.  Good grief!  They are wild and crazy!  I was scared to watch sometimes!  

Then I put all their food containers into a grocery bag, we posed for a picture (which Sam took), and we said our goodbyes.  

Later Sam texted that they had eaten, and Bianca wanted him to tell me that it was the best apple pie ever.  Sammy's favorite thing was the baked corn, and Sam's was the stuffing.  

I took these pictures after we left his place.  

I did not take the following  picture, however.  I saw it on Facebook today.  It was taken from a tower at Sled Works in Duncannon.  What an amazing picture!!  That is the bridge we cross every time we travel from State College to Lancaster County.  This summer the river was so low that Sam and the kids walked the whole way across!!!  It's so wonderful to see it now without any rocks sticking up.  It was such a sad sight this summer and fall.  

We were back home before 6 PM on Thanksgiving day.  We had our own Thanksgiving meal then.  It was a fun day - not as fun as having everyone together, but a whole lot better than staying home by ourselves.  

We've had lots of FaceTime calls this week with the Portland crew.  It's so much more fun now that we've been together.  Here are some pictures from them this week.  Jeremy got up on the roof and strung those lights.  One day they went to a waterfalls about 20 minutes from their place.  

Of course I get daily pictures of my favorite baby!!  Destiny and Elizer are actually still at Alex's mother's place in Ocala, Florida.  Destiny and Alex are making plans to move there.  Boohoohoo!!  But it's not about me.  I will be supportive - as long as I get pictures and videos and we can do video calls.  He's growing up so fast!!!!

I had a long phone conversation with Lisa while we were driving home on Thursday.  They were with George's family at his sister's house.  George took this picture for me.  I wanted to be there too!  I had such fun with all of them at the beach when I was down there for Mother's Day weekend last year.  

Anthony and Lori had their Thanksgiving at home.  Today they went hiking.   I miss them so much.  A vaccine cannot come soon enough!!  

Miki and I had a fun Messenger conversation while we were driving Thursday morning.  I told her that I was on my way to put food in her boy's refrigerator and that I had made him some cookies.  She said that they had celebrated Thanksgiving with Katrina and her boyfriend on Sunday.  I love that Miki has kept the Thanksgiving tradition all these years of living in Sweden.  

Well, that's all for this time.  Have a good weekend!