Thanksgiving getaway

This year for Thanksgiving we rented this house in Allyn, WA on the Puget Sound with some good friends. Its our tradition among this group of friends to spend every third Thanksgiving together. It is a tradition that we cherish and look forward to. It is such a fun, relaxing way to spend the Thanksgiving weekend. We spent our days hanging out at the house, exploring the beach area, playing games, watching a little football, visiting and ate way too much food. It was simply perfect. Here are the picture highlights from our trip-

Mark, Becca and I pose for Pre-Thanksgiving dinner picture:

The kids toasting to friends, before dinner:

High Tide, Corbin standing on the retaining wall:

Low Tide, Becca and Mark searching for sand dollars:

The boys getting ready to go into the lukewarm hot tub:

Mark and I braved taking all five kids into the hot tub:

Group shot of the girls:

James & Mark:

The whole group right before we left:

Thankful Turkey

I wanted to post a picture of our very full Thanksgiving Turkey.
In no specific order, here is what the kids put on our Turkey's feathers: Dad, Mom, Corbin, Trent, Becca, Zoey, Nona & Poppy, Papa & Grandma, Cara & Matt, Tim, Melissa, Bailey, Emma, Rhett, David, Dena, Damon & Michael, Heidi & Jim, Jason, Sadina & kids, Pappy & Grandma, God, Jesus, James & Alicia, Grandma & Aunt Markee, health, Friends, Noel & Kara, America, Veterans, Holidays, art, clothes, warmth, home, music, family, books, coaches, animals, dogs (Hershey), games, vacation, school, doctors, music, toys, sleep, sports, birthdays, drinks, movies, food, jobs, love, peace, weather, sleepovers, water/rain, teachers, nature, dance, land, air, light, sun, and parks.
We sure have a lot to be grateful for this year!

Thanksgiving Turkey

Today we made a Thanksgiving Turkey.

The boys diligently cut out 50 feathers that will be added between now and Thanksgiving. Each feather will list someone or something we are grateful for. We decided to begin with our family, each member individually and grow our turkey from there.


*I'll post an after picture to show how fluffy our turkey becomes*

Happy Thanksgiving

What a wonderful day to celebrate all that we are thankful for, spend time with family & friends and for eating yummy food. I am very thankful for these three:

And this handsome man:

And in light of Gonzaga's winning the Maui Inivitational last night, I am thankful for Gonzaga basketball.

I am also thankful for my extended family, my friends, our jobs, a warm house, my health and the health of family & friends.

Happy Thanksgiving Everyone!

Trent's Buddy

Since school started and Corbin has been gone all day, Trent has had to find a new playmate. At times that is Becca, but she still drives him crazy most of the time. So his new best buddy is Zoey. He plays elaborate games with her and acts as though Zoey is really an active participant. I think Trent really feels understood by Zoey. Today Trent decided to teach Zoey the letters of the alphabet:



Two and a half years ago, Trent came with me to the breeder and helped me pick out Zoey. Trent was 18 months at the time, so Zoey and Trent have truly grown up together. They are great buddies.


This Thanksgiving Trent is really thankful for Zoey

A Selfless Gift

This week as we prepare to celebrate Thanksgiving, there are so many things I am grateful for (more on that later). But there is one thing that I am especially thankful for this year, my sister in law, Heidi.

One month ago today, Mark's dad, Ron, had a kidney transplant. The donor, Mark's sister, Heidi. By almost all accounts, the surgery has a complete success. Ron is doing wonderfully. He has more energy and his incision is healing nicely. The doctors have been so please with his recovery, that they have already started to decrease the immune suppressant drugs. Ron looks years younger and has the energy to match. It is incredible, and for that we are forever thankful to Heidi.

The transplant has been a little more difficult for Heidi. There has been a very rare complication with her arm. During the surgery, her arm was positioned in a way that caused nerve damage. She woke up from surgery unable to use her left arm. She is slowly regaining movement, but it is a long road and will be months before she will have full function. It has been a frustrating journey for Heidi, but her strength and grace through it all has been inspirational. Besides her arm, Heidi is recovering beautifully.

When you talk to Heidi, she will say that giving her father her kidney was "nothing", that it was never a question of whether she should do it or not. It was a given. But for Ron, and the rest of the family, it is everything. A new lease on life, and definitely better quality of life for Ron.

I cannot express the depth of our gratitude. Thank you Heidi for you sacrifice. You are your dad's hero. We are forever grateful.

Ron & Lucille (Mark's mom) with Heidi & Jim (Heidi's husband)

I also want to thank everyone who has been praying for Ron & Heidi and our family. We are very grateful for your support and love.

Blessings Galore!

I want to wish everyone a very Happy Thanksgiving! We enjoyed two turkey dinners and had a wonderful day.

We really do have so much to be thankful for this Thanksgiving! This year, more than ever, I feel especially grateful. I am grateful for my family and three beautiful, healthy kids. I am grateful that Becca is here, I feel like our family is complete now. I am forever grateful for our parents, siblings, extended family, and friends. I am grateful for our house and our jobs. I am grateful for our health. We have been so blessed this year. I love Thanksgiving for giving us a reason to stop and thinking about our many blessings.

At dinner with Mark's family, we each had to say what we were thankful for in general, and then say something specific that we were thankful for about the person to our right. Mark was to Trent's right and Trent said what he liked most about his Daddy was he was BIG. Then he looked at everyone else and said his Daddy is bigger than all of you guys. We all laughed. I was to Corbin's right, and when it was his turn, he said that what he liked most about me is I could have babies. Another laugh. Later, Mark's mom pointed out that what they both said was pretty special. When Trent says he is thankful for Daddy being BIG, I think he means that he looks up to his Dad and that his Dad can take care of us and protect us. And when Corbin said he was grateful that I could have babies, he is really thankful that I brought his sister (and Trent) into our family and I take care of all my babies. It IS pretty special.

Today, we were given another reason to be thankful. This afternoon, a wonderful man called us telling us he knew where our truck was. I was taken back when he said this and quickly gave Mark the phone. The man told us it was ditched at a local ATV/ORV park. It appears whomever stole the truck took it for a joy ride, burned about 2/3 of a tank of gas and left the truck. They did take all the stuff inside (Mark's hunting gear, cooler, etc), although Mark's lunch was dumped out on the seat, Anyone want a two week old PB&J sandwich? But there was no real damage to the truck itself. The inside is wet, from being left out in the rain with the doors/windows open, and the outside is covered in mud, but that is it. We are so grateful to have it back.

We are also, SO grateful to the man who called us about the truck. He went out of his way to track us down. He notice the truck abandoned and went to check it out. The glove box was empty (the thieves took the registration, manual, etc), but they happened to drop our insurance card on the floor. He wrote down Mark's name and went home, googled us, and found our number. He even offered to go help Mark get it out. We plan on calling him tomorrow and sending him an reward/thank you gift. I cannot express how much we appreciate his kindness.

Once again, We really do have so much to be thankful for.

Thankful

Since Saturday when our truck was stolen, I have been feeling a range of emotions. None of them good- anger, frustration, depressed, violated, stressed, etc. I try to remind myself that it is only possessions and we still have so much to be thankful for, but those negative emotions still seep in. Thankfully the holidays are right around the corner, so it gives me something more positive to focus on.

Last night, I was cuddling with Corbin and Trent and we talked about Thanksgiving. Every night at dinner we list what we are thankful for that day. Usually it includes things like- I am thankful for the sunny day, for going to school, for daddy being home, for food, etc. I was explaining that Thanksgiving is a day to give thanks for all our blessing from the past year. Corbin decided he already knew what he was most thankful for this year- "God, Jesus and Mary". I said, "I am thankful for our family and three beautiful and healthy kids." Corbin said, he wanted to add something else to his list- "God, Jesus, Mary and our Family." I then asked Trent what he was thankful for. He quickly answered, "LIONS". Later that night, when I went into Corbin's room to say goodnight. He had one more thing he was thankful for- "our health." So there you have it, we do have SO MUCH to be thankful for: God, Jesus & Mary, our family, our health and, of course, Lions.