Thanksgiving Togetherness--Well not this year.

We usually celebrate Thanksgiving at our house--all my extended family attends if they are able and we usually have around thirty people here.  It wasn't going to happen this year.  For one reason or another it was just going to be impossible for anyone to attend.  So Turtle and I didn't cook a meal.  Instead we joined our daughter-in-law's family in the city, where we got to visit with Blaze.  He had two grandmothers, two great-grandmothers, two grandfathers, an uncle, and a jillion cousins all in the same house.  When we decided to take him outside in the cool fall weather, the first thing he saw was this mighty mound of dirt.  It superseded the jungle gym and even the trampoline. 

It was at this point that his two supervising grandmothers realized that he was wearing new clothes and new shoes and that his mom was probably going to be a little frustrated with us. Ah well.




Meanwhile, a thousand miles away, his other cousins found it colder on the Chesapeake Bay, where their family is dedicating a volunteer year with the Mennonite Disaster Service, re-building homes which were destroyed by Hurricane Sandy a couple of years ago.

 They stayed indoors and played with Legos--building everything from Dalek schools to Doll RV's.

                                                                         

Over in Little Rock Arkansas, two more families rejoiced in the birth of a firstborn son and grandson.

In North Carolina, another sister was able to be together with her family and recorded the moment for us all with this:

And out in West Texas, Some family members had to work; others weren't feeling well. They had pizza and lasagna and pies, but they didn't post a picture. So  drove over there a couple of days later and snapped a candid photo of two out of five of them at least:

Up at the top of the Texas panhandle, my niece was taking engagement photos...out in the wilds with authentic rugged canyon backdrops.


So yes, we were scattered all over for Thanksgiving.  But I thank God for every one of us.  Maybe we'll see each other at Christmas.