Thanksgiving Celebrations

I spent Thanksgiving last year in Idaho with Cameron's family, so I kind of knew what to expect. Or I thought I did. It would be the opposite of what I was used to: no chaos, no large groups of people, no paper plates, no impromtu game of football, no overeating, no Black Friday shopping. I was partially right. I had forgotten about the parts of Thanksgiving that really matter, though. Family. Love. Laughter. Pumpkin Pie. There was definitely an abundance of those. (Except the family. They are a lot fewer in number than my family. But I'm guessing that is probably true of most families.)

Not a very good picture - sorry. Please ignore my sunken cheeks. Dinner helped fatten me up, I assure you.

We left early Thursday morning to drive to Cameron's grandparents house. I took a picture of us on Cameron's phone as we drove so that I could share it with you all, but couldn't get the internet to work very well while we drove through the tall (snow-covered and gorgeous) mountains. That was the only picture we took, even though we also took the camera. Good intentions... Snow fell while we drove, and there were several inches on the ground when we stopped about 30 miles away from his grandparents' house. Thanksgiving in this family is never complete without the guys spending part of the day hunting. Cameron joined his brothers and his dad in their truck and his mom and I took our truck on to his grandparents'. I just want the whole world to know that I drove up a very steep road that was still snow covered. And it has no guard-rail for most of the way. (I probably wasn't as scared as his mom. I couldn't look at how far down it was.) We made it safely and had a good day preparing dinner. Then, we ate lots of good food. I tried pot-liquor. I wasn't brave enough to try it last year. It tastes like tabouli. And it doesn't contain liquor. It just has a weird name.

Friday, I went for a couple of walks in the snow and read a good book (not at the same time!). There are quite a few deer around his grandparents' house and it was fun to watch them.

We left to come home this morning, and I felt like I was coming back to civilization. There is no cell signal out there, and I didn't ask to use their dazzling fast dial-up internet. I couldn't bring myself to be dazzled in that way.

I was worried about the trip before we went. I was worried about driving all that way on slick roads, I was worried about staying the weekend with people I didn't know very well, and I was worried about not eating enough. That is a very serious concern to my emaciated body. I have to eat constantly just to keep up my girlish figure. I had a great time. There were a couple of times when I wanted to break out in wailing sobs because of homesickness, but I managed to ignore them. Yes, I missed my family. And I still do. But I chose to marry my best friend, and chose the sacrifices associated with living in a different state. My sisters sent me lots of pictures and I can pretend like I'm home. I love his family, and I'm learning by God's grace to deal with my homesickness one day at a time. I'm focusing on the positive. (Like the abundance of cinnamon rolls that I somehow ended up bringing home that are begging to be eaten. They are definitely going to help my girlish figure stay well rounded. That's good, right?)

All this to say: God is good. I thought I would be miserable this weekend, and I wasn't. I wasn't sure I'd have a good time, and I did. Change and new things aren't bad; they are just change and new things. (That was profound. Please let me know when you get done pondering my profundity.) I had a great Thanksgiving, and I hope all of you did as well. Now, if someone would please play me the BC Clark commercial, my life would be complete.