We stayed home for Thanksgiving this year since the kids and I had recently traveled to see my side of the family and Brett had just come home from training. I'd only ever cooked a full Thanksgiving meal once before when I was in my first trimester with Sebastian. Needless to say, I was too nauseous to enjoy most of it.
It was just going to be our family and any stray soldier friends of Brett's until we found out some friends of ours from Seattle that we hadn't seen in six years were free to join us! They're currently also in Colorado so we decided to catch up over some organic turkey, homemade cranberry sauce, my Grandmother's sweet potato recipe, and a store bought pie because I bought evaporated milk instead of sweetened condensed. Let's all give Brett a round of applause for driving to the grocery store at 10 p.m. on Wednesday night to save the day.
We ate and talked and corralled children. A few had naps and we got in a round or two of A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving after a trip to the park. We caught up on everyone we used to know and exchanged parenting stories. It was a beautiful day and no one got food poisoning!
We're all learning to live lives of gratitude, aren't we? Thankfulness for where we are, what we've made it through, and all the lessons we've learned along the way. Thankfulness for the people who used to be in our lives and the ones that presently are. Thankfulness for the room we have to learn and discover and grow.
I hope your Thanksgiving day was memorable one way or another (if you celebrated with us in the U.S.). Also, I think the key to not getting overstuffed is to host it at your home. You're too busy cooking, cleaning, clearing, visiting, and checking on kids to have seconds!
-Rachel
