Celebrate the Holidays with us...Thanksgiving 2017

Hi friends, this past weekend was thanksgiving and in my family this means a lot of

parties and turkey, lots and lots of turkey. I have two days of parties that I went to for thanksgiving because my family is so big.

The first day I went to my dad's side of the family that is much bigger then my mother's side, and to be completely honest
with you I don’t know a lot of my cousin's names because there are so many of them haha. It was a lot of fun there I like to play duck, duck, goose! with my little cousins and we have a lot of fun because there are around 20 kids and me which makes a big circle to run around. The second day is my mother's side of the family and we decided to take family pictures. My mom is a photographer and she tends to get very excited about this so we took a lot of group pictures and my grandpa and grandma
also did this really funny picture that’s like the American Gothic painting with the couple and the pitchfork. I love my get together with my very large family and the amount of turkey I get to eat is also a plus as well.

~Aly

          I was able to go home Tuesday night for Thanksgiving break. The plane landed in Dallas at 10:30 at night, my dad picked me up and we finally made the long drive back home and arrived at 2am. On Wednesday, I made waffles for breakfast, played games with my brothers all day and took a glorious guilt-free nap. Thursday, Thanksgiving, was full of cooking and eating and spending time with family. We (mostly mom) tried out some new “healthy” recipes like Cauliflower mashed potatoes and homemade cranberry sauce. Luckily there were some regular mashed potatoes as well, but i was told the cranberry sauce turned out to be delicious. The rest of the day was spent playing football and board games. Friday morning, I drove down to the barn to ride. My instructor was away visiting family, but her husband/my other instructor was there teaching lessons, so I rode a few horses that needed the work. It was nice to see the familiar faces! That afternoon, I took two of my brothers to see a movie (Thor Ragnarok) while my parents were doing some black Friday shopping.

          The next day, we went on a family outing in Austin to play mini-golf. After I had claimed the coveted title of 4^th place, we went out for dinner and stopped by a food truck for some Thai-style ice cream. It was sooooo good! The last day of break, we went to church and then I took another nap and played games until it was time to head back to the airport. It was really nice to be back home for a few days. I was able to catch up on sleep, relax, and hang out with family to take a break from the busy days at school. Even though I will be back in two weeks, it was a welcome change to recover before the stress of finals!

~Jennah

Thanksgiving plans are the same every year at my house. On Thursday we go to my mom’s parent’s
house for thanksgiving dinner, on Friday we decorate for Christmas, and then on Saturday we go to my cousin’s house for my dad’s family’s thanksgiving.  A few years ago my Dad’s family decided it was too difficult trying to get everyone together ON Thanksgiving and moved our celebration to the Saturday after to help everyone out. At both Thanksgivings we had all the traditional Thanksgiving food, turkey, mashed potatoes, stuffing, Cranberries, rolls, pumpkin pie, etc. Etc. I enjoyed seeing all of the family I don’t get to see all the time and I especially enjoyed not having to do any homework while on break. That’s right; I finished almost everything before leaving for break and did 0 homework while on break.

My sister eating a dessert of whipped topping!

We barely made a dent in the long buffet of food!

Every month I have a quote. This month’s quote is, “Today I choose to live with Gratitude for the love that fills my heart, the Peace that rests within my spirit and the voice of hope that says ‘All things are possible” I thought this would be perfect for the month of November because while we think about and say we are thankful for the people, things and such that are in our lives, especially around this time of year, I think it is also important to be thankful for the things that aren’t so tangible. Things you can’t see or touch but when you sit and think about them you know they are there; Peace, Love, Joy, Gratitude, Contentment, Desire, and Motivation.

Love God, Love People, Love Disney,

~Lacey

So, Thanksgiving is a time to spend with family and friends, and be thankful for what we have. Everybody celebrates Thanksgiving different, and I bet you’re dying to hear about mine, so I won’t make you wait any longer. On Thanksgiving I got up early, definitely not on purpose. My thanksgiving consists of setting up for Christmas, I started this tradition about four years ago since we don’t have Thanksgiving with my Mom’s family until the Saturday after Thanksgiving. This year my day started out in the attic pulling all of the Christmas stuff down that I was going to be putting up inside and outside the house. I set the tree up and had some help from my sister this year and once that was finished I went outside and wrapped our poles in red ribbon and then strung the lights, I ended up getting my finger caught in the staple gun, so yay me. Once I was done decorating I raked and burned the leaves in the ditch, which wasn’t very interesting, because I had no time to roast marshmallows. For dinner we had ham in cranberry sauce, boy that was great! So, in all reality my Thanksgiving was spent with my mom and sister and I enjoyed it!

Until the ‘morrow we will speak again

~Megan

For thanksgiving break I was able to have a chance to go home for the first time this semester. This was a big deal for me, as I am from NJ, and I do not get to go home every weekend like most students on campus. I was so excited to be back with my family and friends, but most importantly to be with my dog Ginger. We all know that the reason why we choose to go home for the holidays is to have a great home cooked meal and to see our pets.

When I came home late on Wednesday night, my dog was so excited to see me, and she was just as cute as I remember her being 😊 To explain what I did over my holiday break, this year my family hosted Thanksgiving at my house, which made it even better. Family from Maine, Pine beach (which is 45 minutes south of my home), and my mom’s friend and her son came over to celebrate. It was nice to have everyone in the same place, as it was a time for us all to catch up on the things that happened since we had seen them. This was a time for me to relax and to enjoy being home with my

family. Along with having time to be thankful for all the things I have, we took time as a family to have fun and to venture out to do what we love most; which is spending time with one another. Some fun activities that we did as a family included going black Friday shopping on Friday, now, I must explain how this is not an annual event, but we found some time this year to go. We went Christmas tree shopping which was the highlight of my weekend, we got some good laughs from the man who helped us at the farm. It was a time that I will never forget. Lastly, I asked if could take a trip to the beach so that I could take it all in before I left on Sunday.  Going to the beach is one of my favorite things to do in both the winter and the summer as it is very relaxing to walk along the waters edge and collect sea glass. All the fun had to end when I had to wake up at 3:45 to get ready to leave for the airport to say my goodbyes until I see them again in 2 weeks for Christmas.

~Morgan 

What Did you guys do over Thanksgiving break?
~The Friends at the Woods