Thanksgiving Day Fun!

Well it's been almost a week since Thanksgiving and I am just now getting around to making a post. It is amazing how time can just get away from you.

This 1st photo is of B&D's nephew that came to town from Northern Calif for the holiday. He brought a very special gift with him, and was so generous as to share it with Monkey and I! That's right, This little sweetie coughed and hacked and had a runing nose all day. Bless Bryanna's heart she got to take him home with her for the whole weekend (more about that later). So this is one of the reasons I am so late in making my Thanksgiving Day post.

I think I already told you that we were hosting Thanksgiving dinner at our house this year. And we were including Darwin's sister's family from Calif. Feeling oh so proud of myself, I had the table all set and ready for company ahead of time. We would all be sitting in the dinning room and I bought a small child's folding table to seat the 2 little boys. About 9pm on Wed I got a phone call from Bryanna - we would be having 6 more family members of Darwin's for dinner. No sweat! That is why we bought this big house after living in a tiny house the whole time we were raising our kids. I actually felt blessed with the news of more family. It was my vision of a full house at the holidays here and this holiday would be full! So I pulled out the leaf on the other table, washed a few more pieces of china and added an extra placesetting to the kids folding table. Viola! We were all set once again!
Thanksgiving Day was wet and kinda dreary - the 1st Thanksgiving in 20 years that we had rain in Phx. But that is better than the Thanksgivings we had in the past at 90+ degrees! When Monkey arrived I was trying my best to get a photo of her in her dress I got her - she was having NO part of that! Instead she insisted on a game of hide-n-seek on the patio around the bar. I am really glad she did, these are some of my most favorite pictures from the day! Can you even believe how stinkin' CUTE she is!!!!! I am truly thankful to have her in my life!


We were a little late getting dinner on the table this year. But it was just okay. Everybody seemed to find something to do and some place to hang out while my Mother was busy in the kitchen. (remember, I hurt my arm and so I really did none of the cooking this year - I left that job to my 73 yo Mother!) The guys were out back playing darts and smoking cigars. The kids were inside playing and running crazy (making my Mom about crazy too) and the woman were just visiting, while I ran from area to area with my camera. Eventually grace was said and everyone helped themselves to a big plate of tradional Thanksgiving food. I had a hard time getting a picture of everyone at the table at once. And once everyone was sitting down I was too, and shoving my face full of noodles and other goodies! Monkey seemed to enjoy her plate, and it's a good thing she can feed herself now so that her Mom could start eating too!

Once dinner was done Gary got all of the kids ready and took them all on walk to one of the parks in our community. The other men decided to go too (except for one) so the women all stayed in and poured over the Black Friday ads in the paper. Being as how all of my shopping is done (bragging here) I opted to do the dishes. Another great thing about our new house is that I can do that and still be part of whats going on. All of the living area in our house is all pretty much open and visable.
While I was doing dishes, Darwin's SIL, Betty came to me to thank me for dinner and to say she had to leave, she had another home to visit. She speaks very broken English and somehow something was said that sounded like she was leaving her FOUR kids at my house for the night!!!!! I had no problem telling her that was NOT going to happen (in a nice way of course). Finally I understood her that her FOUR kids were going to spend the night at B&D's house. YOu should have seen Bryanna's face. She didn't know about this plan! She drives a Toyota and had 3 adults. Monkey in her car seat and BIG dog all in her car! No room for 4 kids there. Darwin's sister also drives a small car and had 4 of them in there as well. Pretty soon some sleeping bags appeared for the kids and Betty disappeared! I assured Bryanna that Gary & I would help her get those kids to her house and that she would not have to make several trips (55 miles round trip)


They got home from the park just in time before the rains returned. The sky was amazing right before the rain and I of course had to go out and take some pictures.
By now little Jonathon is really sick and coughing and so I ran his Mom to Walmart to get some cough syrup so they wouldn't have to stop in the rain with all of the kids. By the time we got back it was pouring! Monkey was cranky, Jonathon was sick and it was time to call it a day. Gary said he'd drive the kids and the caravan out of Vistancia began! Of course in typical Marta style, I broke out the bleach and the Lysol to kill the bug that had been left behind in my house (it didn't work).


You would think the night was over but it wasn't. Richard shows up now and it was time to start decorating the tree. By now Gary is in bed and so was Mom. But Mom made us promise to wake her up when we got started. Tradition says that she must hang the sleeping angel at the top of the tree first. (this was the 1st ornament that her and Doodle bough when they got married) So the four of us laughed and acted silly as we decorated the tree. There were several new ornaments to go this year. Some special ones bought on our trip to Disneyland, a little monkey ornament Bryanna bought for me and Monkey and several more Snow White ornaments (Mom's favs)

VIOLA!!!!! We got it all finished and it was stunning!

Another Thanksgiving Day has come and gone and I have even more to be thankful for this year than I did last year!!! How about you?

Be sure to click on the pictures to see them bigger