Being Thankful for So Much, Especially Our Family

A large local church, CrossRoads Christan Church, sort of adopted the school that I work at. They help the needy kids, they send people to cheer at our sporting events and they do what they can to support the staff. One way that did that this year was to give 30 staff members a fully cooked Thanksgiving dinner for eight and I was one of the lucky people to benefit from their generosity. They teamed up with restaurant owners around town and came up with over 250 such sets of full 8 person dinners. I was humbled. I wanted to give it to some of the kids from our school who could not afford to have Thanksgiving, but they insisted that they go to the teachers, so we really enjoyed it. We went to the Level C restaurant in Arvada to pick up the food. The operation was amazing.There were turkeys in bags, tons of containers of side dishes and boxes of pies. They were still getting set up so Ethan and I schlepped many, many loads of turkeys and boxes of pies from the freezer trailer to the bar. We were rewarded with a smoked turkey, mashed potatoes, gravy, sweet potatoes, stuffing, salad and a pecan pie. We could not express how thankful we were. The people who put it together seemed happy to share. I am going to make a point of sending out thank you notes this week. It was really nice to be thought of.

We are so thankful that we still have so much family with us to celebrate. We included my Uncle Joe (who has been gone about a year and a half) by using some of the silver goods (like a bowl) that he won playing tennis. Eleanor is still feeling good, but I had to block my thoughts of what next year might be like without her. I simply could not let myself go there. So I decided to be thankful instead. Mark and Lilia were in town to join us. Aunt Kathy took a break from unpacking her new apartment to join us. Carrie and Ariana joined us at the last moment. Their trip was canceled so they added to our fun. Ellie really loved having a friend join us this year.




We visited, we ate, we drank and we enjoyed a day of calm. Ellie and Ariana were especially happy when the snow began to fall silently outside. They ran out, jumped on top of the picnic table and proceeded to catch fat, fluffy flakes on the end of their tongues. Ellie had been hoping for a snowy weekend and she got her wish.

The kitties certainly had the right idea on how to end the day.