The Thanksgiving 2008 Post

Before I get to the actual week of Thanksgiving, I have some pictures to share from the end of November.



And on to the actual week (by day):

Friday night, we gave the kids their bath, did cuddle time, and instead of putting them in their beds, we put them in their car seats and headed to Dallas. JR drove the entire way. He's a beast.

Saturday we arrived at Claudia and Ryan's empty apartment (they were at a retreat) around 6 am. The kids and I ate breakfast and found PBS on the tv while JR crashed. We spent Sat. recovering from our over-night journey and waiting for Claudia and Ryan to return. When they did, they treated us to some gourmet pizza and a walk around the Uptown area where they live.

Sunday was a little different for us, as Ryan and Claudia are leaders in a church planting effort. There was no Sunday morning assembly to get ready for, so we had a leisurely morning of running some errands and getting ready for the rest of the day. The afternoon was spent at a nearby park playing kick-ball with anyone who wanted to join in. JR DOMINATED the event. No one realized that Ryan and Claudia brought in a ringer. :) Everyone had a lot of fun. And most of the people we saw again during the "service" hosted by the Porches. We met a lot of good people and ate a lot of good food (the meal shared by the group was a holiday meal).

Monday Ryan and JR headed out to get some things squared away for the up-coming Gathering service of the first house church planted and the first "sent" group. Claudia and I played with the kids until we were "relieved" by JR so that Claudia and I could attend a WeightWatchers meeting. (oh, yeah... I've been doing WW for 6 wks. now and am seeing results) After the meeting we all met up and ate at a cafe and then did some shoe shopping. (I was finally able to get JR to buy a pair of shoes for himself. This is the first time he's gotten shoes since we were dating!)That evening, Claudia fixed us a lovely meal, and after the kids were in bed, we watched some funny things off of Youtube and caught up on "Heroes" together.

Here's the slide-show of the pictures I took in Dallas.



Tuesday we all headed out caravan-style, to Searcy, arriving mid-afternoon. Once everyone was reunited, we headed out to the house that my parents are almost finished building. It's lovely. But I'm pretty sure that the Kansas City Meatballs were on everyone's mind, so we headed back to the house and chilled until dinner. After dinner, we decided to have Christmas. (okay!) The rest of the evening was spent enjoying each other's company and watching the newest episode of "Heroes". After everyone else went to bed, JR and I were able to watch the final episodes of "Battlestar Galactica" that we hadn't seen yet. We did this every night until we were caught up and ready for when they start showing the last half of the final season. (I've never said we are not geeks.)

Wednesday, after spending the morning together, broke off by gender. They guys (all of them) went car shopping with Papa and then ate wings. After lunch, while Gideon was sleeping, the older guys played one of JR's new games. The ladies (all of us) headed to Conway. We ate a lovely meal at Marketplace and did some shopping. For my birthday (which also came early this year) I got a gift-card to Old Navy. And since I didn't have any long sleeved shirts, and I'm heading to Germany on the 16th, I had to go get some. We shopped all afternoon and Naomi was a trooper. She was especially happy when I bought her her very own Curious George. For dinner we all met back up at the house. Dinner was really fun. After we were finished eating we all played with a toy microphone Gideon got from the Porches for Christmas. It has recording capabilities and you can play back at different speeds. We did some silly things with that toy. And all I really remember is laughter. Lots of it. After the kids went to bed, we watched the "24: Redemption" movie.

Thursday was Gideon's 2.5 birthday, but like I said, he had eggs for breakfast. So he was a little harder to deal with than normal. :) For Thanksgiving we had the Mansurs and the Allens over. We ate and laughed and talked. The kids played... and did I mention eating? Around 4 we ALL headed over to my parents "almost" house and admired it again. By the time everyone headed their own ways, we were due to visit the Yeckes where the Brooks were also going to be. However we also ran into the Hoppers. We had a lovely visit and then headed, exhausted, home.

Friday was supposed to be our huge Guys-Make-Breakfast-Breakfast. But somehow in the confusion of the day before, they forgot to plan anything. So Papa, all by himself, made breakfast for everyone. Ryan and JR did clean it up however. :) Since the people who are buying the house my parents are currently in were coming by to see the place again, we all cleaned up our traveling stuff. We had a mini birthday party for me and chilled out. All of us played JR's new game while the leftovers were out and about for grazing purposes.

Saturday the Porches left after lunch, I visited with Katie Johnston, took the kids to see the Holiday of Lights,and then, like before, instead of putting the kids to bed after their bath, we put them in the car and headed home. 10 hours (flat) later, we were home without electricity. :)

Here's the slide-show from this portion of the trip:



Hope you enjoyed this multi-slide-showed post.

Tomorrow is Naomi's 10th Monthabirthday and I'd like to get some video for her. (I had a video for G's.)

Til tomorrow!
Daisha