Thanksgiving in four places...

Location 1: Amy and Andrew had a nice quiet meal at home in their apartment in Tempe and made their first Thanksgiving meal together. It was kind of strange not to have them with us, but we totally understood that they wanted to enjoy their 2nd Thanksgiving holiday as a married couple, to begin some of their own traditions and create some of their own memories. It sounds like they had a beautiful day.

Location 2: Terry and I had dinner at our house with some of the Perkins family. It was our smallest Thanksgiving gathering in a long time, if not ever. For dinner there were only 7 of us! That's less than our original immediate family of 8. We had mom(Grandma Jaye), Sharon and her friend John, Sharon's son Russell (in photo above) and his girlfriend Shannon, Terry and me. We were so thankful to have Russ here this year, now that he's home safely from Iraq.

Diane, Steve and Lisa had dinner with Steve's family since his mom had just been released from the hospital the day before. They joined us later for dessert (lots of pie) and games (Apples to Apples). We had a 19 pound turkey and cooked 10 pounds of potatoes plus much more, so we had plenty of leftovers to send home with those who wanted them and we still have quite a bit here. It's o.k. though, because we like leftovers. It was a gorgeous day outside so we set up the table in the backyard...one of the perks of living in AZ. The weather was perfect!

Unfortunately I got so involved in being the hostess that I forgot to take pictures when we were eating and playing...another reason why we missed Amy. She always remembers the pictures!

Location 3: Kevin is stationed near Spokane, WA right now and he wasn't able to get home for this holiday. He actually spent Thanksgiving on the base and said that the turkey in the mess hall wasn't too bad.

He and 3 of his (linguist) friends also drove 3 hours south to our friend's house in Mabton, WA and had another turkey dinner on Friday. It was so sweet of Paul & Jane to host this meal for the guys. Of course, they've been loving our kids for decades and this is just another evidence of that. How awesome to have such dear friends there when we can't be!

Location 4: Our new daughter-in-law, Erin was in Santa Clarita with her family there. Ever since Kevin graduated from language school, he's been in Texas and Washington state on assignments that were too short for her to be with him, so she's been living in SCV since the end of September. We look forward to seeing her again and to the time when they'll be together.

Even though we couldn't all be together we're thankful that we could all be with people we enjoy and who love us. That's a true blessing.