Happy Thanksgiving!

Two days late, but Happy Thanksgiving to all who celebrate!

We had a wonderful one of a kind celebration here in FL with my children, grandparents (G&G), mother, aunt and uncle (M&S) and cousin (C)!  I guess it sounds pretty ordinary, as I'm sure lots of people gathered 'round the table with multiple generations and family members but in our case it was a first, for me anyway.

First of all, I've never had Thanksgiving with M&S&C so that was a treat in itself.  I've also never celebrated Thanksgiving with G&G in their own house (had a quick meal at their assisted living place once, but that doesn't really count).  Second, we actually got G&G (ages 90 and 99) to leave their assisted living place and come to their house and have dinner with us!  Not a regular occurrence to say the least.  It takes a whole lot to convince Grampa (the 99 year old) to go anywhere these days.  He told me when he came in and got situated that he wasn't going to come after all but then Gramma said she wouldn't go either.  So, he changed his mind, again, cause he knew she really wanted to go and he didn't want her to miss out on it.  How sweet is that?!  And how convoluted were those sentences?!  Those two are really something.  Still.

It was almost just like the old days.

But, backing up a bit first, we started the day by attempting to make lungs.  Why, I do not know, but you never argue with science in the making.



Then there was parade watching.  Despite what it looks like here, they really were excited about it.



Especially when this came floating by



Mount Rushmore!! Mount Rushmore!! Look!! Mount Rushmore!!  We still love Mount Rushmore I guess.  Yes, that's a VERY old TV.  But it does the trick.  For these purposes anyway.

I spent the afternoon in the kitchen preparing some raw dishes for dinner




Raw 'fried rice' and a raw parsnip and corn mash.  Both were yummy.  The parsnips even passed Grampa's test!

The kids worked very hard all day on getting their lego museum set up.  The museum included a Wright Bothers plane.  Yes, we know that in the 'human' plane the pilot was laying down, but this is lego reality we're talking about here.  Apparently.  Other than that, I thought is was a pretty good replica :-).



Also included was the Capitol.



The Lincoln Memorial



and other US landmarks.  The following morning Inventor set up a whole lego diorama of Washington DC, complete with the Washington Monument and the Jefferson Memorial as well.

But, back to Thanksgiving.

G&G really seemed to light up once they were here.

They got lego demonstrations



and really enjoyed seeing the kids in action, even if some interactions were a little 'close'  :-)





This is a 'hurray for being here with everyone' moment of celebration caught by chance on camera.  Arms in the air in victory and all.  Hurray is right!



Of course there was way too much food to be eaten, cooked and raw, vegan and non.  A little bit for everyone.  Or really, a lot for everyone.  Thank you Aunt S for preapring most of it and schlepping it over here to feed us all and celebrate with us!

G&G are both *very* hard of hearing and now use these little microphones with real earphones to hear.  Hearing aids have long since failed them.  Here's my Mom talking into both at once so they both could hear what she was saying at the same time.  A comical scene, but you know, you do what you gotta do.  As long as there's an effective way for us to communicate with them, and they with each other, that's all that matters.



At the end of the meal my Mom put on a show and tell for her parents with the quilts she's made for us over the years.  They'd never seen them before and since we have them in the RV with us (and now in the house here) she took this opportunity to share them.  There's Whirlwind in the back curled up in his.  Guess it was time for bed.

I wish I had a better shot of this one to share, it's a crazy quilt and really cool.



In case some of you are wondering where S was in all this, he wasn't here.  We'd put him on a plane heading for Montreal the day before to visit a friend.  We missed him, the kids were in tears for goodness sake, but it was the only time to do it.  I realized when they experienced such strong reactions to his absence that it was the first time in almost five months that we weren't all together.  And boy were we really all together!  The longest separation time we'd experienced until now on this trip was a few hours.  Max.  This is going to be a difficult week for them I think.

But, back to being thankful for the now.  As I keep reminding the kids, we need to focus on what we're thankful for.  It's not many kids who get to celebrate Thanksgiving with their great-grandparents!  And it's not many almost 40 year olds that get to celebrate anything with their own grandparents.

Now THAT'S, something to be truly thankful for!