Happy Thanksgiving!

Happy Thanksgiving, All! I sincerely pray you all had a lovely Thanksgiving, as I & my family did. We headed to Lexington (NC) on Wednesday afternoon to see my family. My mom & dad, my brother & his wife AND my mom's parents (Gram & Buppa to me!) all live there so we were able to spend some time with all of them.

One thing we got to do that was really neat for me was to take a ride in my Daddy's truck. Most of you know that he has become a truck driver, driving big semis, tractor-trailers, whatever you want to call them...the big mamma-jammas! Anyway, I just think that's the coolest thing and he was able to take me out in the truck while we were home. He has a really nice truck with US Xpress and I was able to get up in it and see where he stores his stuff, where he sleeps, where his TV and everything is...it was just a really cool thing. I enjoyed riding in that tall thing and I really got an education because Daddy told me tidbits about the truck and how different driving it is while we were out.

We usually have our Thanksgiving meal as dinner on Thursday since my brother & his wife have Thanksgiving lunch with her family. I kinda like it that way because we don't have to get up at the crack of dawn to have everything ready by lunch. We can take our time and not spend all day in the kitchen (although it always ends up feeling like that...). Our meal was wonderful. We had a lot of traditional dishes, like green bean casserole and mashed potatoes/gravy, but we also had a couple dishes we don't normally have, like sweet potato casserole and pineapple cheese casserole. We had tons of desserts including 3 pies and a new recipe I tried, Butterscotch Apple Crisp. Everything was very tasty and we all ate WAY TOO MUCH.

Friday, the 3 of us (me, Momma & Gram) headed off to Seagrove in keeping with what has become one of my favorite traditions. I don't get into all that is "Black Friday", but I do enjoy shopping the day after Thanksgiving in the "pottery capital of the world". We had a great time just being together and finding the neatest things. I was able to get some Christmas gifts, as well as a little something for me. :) The fall foliage was absolutely GORGEOUS and I loved every minute of the drive around Seagrove. We actually were able to watch a potter creating what they call a brie baker (you can see for yourself here), so that was really neat for us.

We came back on Saturday night so we were able to be with our friends today in church & Sunday School. That was important to us because we are so very thankful for our friends here, who are really our family since both Jeff & I live so far from our families. We are truly blessed in every aspect of our lives, and we pray the Lord would help us to remember that and keep us content with all that He has given us.

God bless you all throughout the rest of this holiday season!

"And let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you were called in one body. And be thankful. Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom...with thankfulness in your hearts to God. And whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him."

--Colossians 3:15-17

documenting the milestones...

Most of you know that I'm a scrapbooker. Well, I finally started the house scrapbook this past weekend (part of the reason I haven't posted in a while). My Creative Memories consultant, Jill, held her 2nd scrapbooking retreat this weekend in Ocean Isle Beach, NC. I was able to go to the first one in April and had an all-out blast so I was really looking forward to this one. We had a larger house this time which means we had more room to spread out. It was so much fun! There were about 14 of us total and we all got a lot done. We ate tons of food, had lots of conversation, scrapbooked gobs of pages/events...and we managed to squeeze a few hours of sleep in there. :)

I got about 13 pages done in the house scrapbook which is not NEARLY as many as some, but I'm very pleased with how all the pages turned out. I took my time deciding on color schemes and how I wanted to showcase each day of progress. That's usually how I scrapbook anyway, but I think I took extra time just because I could (no where to go for 2 1/2 days!). I really enjoyed myself this weekend. I'm up through June 13 in the album; needless to say, I have a ways to go to complete it, but I have a feeling I'll be continuing on with the scrapbook after the house is built, similar to how I've done with this blog.