Thanksgiving week

This has been a great week, and it's not even over yet. The main reason it's been good is because Jeff took the week off work. He was planning on volunteering at Sydney's preschool, but this week has been warm (I say warm, but I hardly call mid 30's warm). It's been warm enough to rain and melt the snow and then at night it's been in the 20's so all the rain and melted snow has created an extremely, dangerous ice on the roads. So dangerous that they closed schools and Sydney's preschool. Unfortunately Jeff couldn't volunteer (he was looking forward to it), but he did manage to steam clean the whole upstairs, clean the garage and cars out. The girls and I decorated for Christmas. Wednesday we made it outside to see the movie Tangled. Thursday, we had Thanksgiving at our house. We had 3 families in our neighborhood over and the sister missionaries (11 adults, 10 kids). It was the perfect amount of people, any more and it would have been mayhem. It was my first time cooking a turkey, a 21 pounder. It turned out good, not great, but good. I'm glad it's over, it was causing some anxiety. I can't say everything I'm thankful for because the list is infinite. So I'll write down 3 things I'm thankful for, actually 4: 1. my family. 2. my God 3. my health and 4. my freedom. (In college I went back East and went to many wonderful places, but one of my favorites was visiting Lexington and Concord, places were the Revolutionary War was fought. I'm not much of a history buff, but being there was powerful for me. Standing on the grounds where men were killed for the future of America caused the hairs on the back of my neck to raise and a lump in the back of my throat made it difficult for me to swallow because I feel much gratitude and respect for those people who fought in that war, people I don't know. Did they realize the impact they were making on our country? Because of their vision, pride, and bravery I was able to sit down and have a peaceful Thanksgiving with people of different races and religion. I'm grateful for my freedom and grateful to live in a place where people of different ethnicity and religion are treated equally).
Then in the early hours of the morning, I woke up to experience my first Black Friday shopping. Yes, I actually sacrificed sleep to wake up and spend money.....my sister would be so proud. (FYI--I love my bed and I love to sleep. I often describe myself as neither a night person nor morning person). It was crazy, but perfect. I got in back of a loooong line, probably behind at least 500 people. But right when I got in line the doors opened and the line started moving. I got what I wanted and was out of the store within 25 minutes and back into my nice, warm bed not long after. It snowed all day on Thanksgiving, literally. It's awesome because now the ice is buried and we can play outside. The rest of the weekend we will go skiing and sledding and I'm sure hot chocolate will be involved too. Outside on our back deck
Me and my friend Elaine. We're team coaching for Sydney's and her daughter's b-ball team.
Jeff w/ the turkey and Jeanette. She's also our pediatrician and has saved us many times already. We like playing Cities and Knights (if you know what that game is) with her and her husband.