Sunday, November 30, 2008

THANKSGIVING WEEKEND

The end of a long holiday weekend. We wanted Mikkel and Mauricio to experience a traditional Thanksgiving with lots of family, food and fun. I think we accomplished our goal.

Kevin and Lorri came in on Wednesday afternoon, the evening before Thanksgiving, and spent the night at the farm. Early Thursday morning, Gina and the boys were joined by Paige and Josh for an early run in Kokomo. Kevin and Lorri went to church in Lafayette while Travis took on the task of getting the turkey started. He had already cooked a goose after shooting it (yes, shooting it himself) out at the lake.

By early afternoon the house was filled with the addition of Kelly and Tejas from Michigan and Kate and James from Lafayette, Indiana. James mother, Carol, one of his brothers and his brother's girlfriend also joined us. There were 15 of us for dinner this year and we sat down to what looked like a mountain of food. Goose, turkey, potatoes, noodles, dressing, cranberry salad, macaroni and cheese, brocolli and rice. And that was just for supper. Earlier we snacked our way through spring rolls, shrimp, dips and a lot of other things.
Kelly, Gina's niece, took a turn holding one of our birds. He's usually pretty feisty; maybe the sight of his distant kin on the carving board subdued him!

We played the Wii game off and on throughout the day and after supper we all sat and played a game together. Everyone had a lot of fun and the women beat the men in multiple rounds.

Friday afternoon we met again at a waterpark hotel near Cincinnati, Ohio. It's not far from where Kevin and Lorri live so they came over for the afternoon and evening but did not spend the night. Our niece, Madison, came along too. Waterslides, wave pools, a lazy river and a lot of water basketball left everyone ready for a deep night's sleep. Each family indulged in a little of the US day after Thanksgiving past-time---shopping---on Friday and Saturday.

We'll ask the boys later to tell us what they thought of their first Thanksgiving. We're hoping to get our Christmas tree up soon too.