1. Emma started practices for her club volleyball team last weekend. I'm so glad she's back with this team! She played with them for two years, got talked into playing on a different club team last year after deciding she wasn't going to play club ball at all, and now we're back to her original club team. Go, Spikers!
2. We celebrated Thanksgiving at preschool with feasts both days. Our Pre-K kids dress as Indians, Primary as Pilgrims and Toddlers as turkeys, and they all contribute items for the feast, plus we've talked all month about the importance of being thankful for all we have.
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| Poster child for the Puritan life, right? |
3. I received a delicious turkey from two darling "Indians" on Monday. Thanks, girls!
4. On Tuesday afternoon, Emma and I went to the hospital to visit a dear friend who is in hospice care. We only stayed a few minutes, just wanting to tell her we loved her, knowing it would be the last time we would see her in this life. I'm grateful we took the time to go see her, as difficult as it was for us. She looked beautiful and was so glad to see us! I wrote a 101 word story about it for a writer's workshop at Mama Kat's, and you can read about it here.
5. Wednesday morning, my parents drove to our house, then we loaded all of our stuff into their vehicle and all of us headed off to my brother's house for Thanksgiving. We turned a three and a half hour trip into a six and a half hour trip, but we made it!
6. Wednesday evening, we continued a tradition of going to see the Mizzou Tigers volleyball team play their last home game of the year. It's so exciting to watch college level volleyball! Holy mackerel, they hit that ball hard! After the game, we took time to visit with a player who is a sophomore from Springfield, Missouri, and whom we had the privilege of watching play high school ball when her high school team beat the pants off our varsity team. She even remembered meeting us last year!
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| My dad and brother, watching the game. |
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| Chancellor Loftin was there. That's impressive. |
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| This guy was wearing an SEC belt. Who knew there was such a thing? |
7. Part two of going to the volleyball game was that Emma got to visit a few minutes with her favorite Mizzou volleyball player, Sarah Meister, a senior who just played her last home game of her career. She was so sweet to take time out to speak with Emma and get her picture taken with her again. They both play libero and they are both #4, so she remembered meeting Emma before as well. When we got back to my brother's house, Emma posted the picture on Instagram and tagged Sarah, who wrote a sweet comment and then started following Emma on Instagram, which made her feel like da bomb.
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| Emma with Sarah, two years ago. |
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| And with Sarah for the last game of her college career. What a darling girl! |
8. Part three: Shakespeare's Pizza. If you've ever had it, then 'nuff said.
9. Thanksgiving dinner was excellent! My brother outdid himself this year. It would have been nice to have had more mashed potatoes, though. Hopefully, next year....
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| My brother. Write you own caption. |
10. My niece SWEARS these are not weevils in the soap in her shower, as I originally thought, but just to be on the safe side, I did not use it. (She swears it's some kind of lavender bits, but I'm still not completely convinced, given the family history, and if you haven't read this post about how my brother fed me weevils, then you should.)
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| Lavender? Mhm. |
Now home again from our trip, Christmas decorations out of the attic and in much disarray around the house, and I've got a college boy to return to school, so I'm off and running again. Link up, if you haven't already!
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A Fly on our (Chicken Coop) Wall, Amycake and the Dude, Considerings, Finding Ninee, Getting Literal, I Want Backsies, Mother of Imperfection, Rewritten, Thankful Me, The Wakefield Doctrine
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That's your fav holiday, right? I'm glad it was a good one. I am full on Xmas mode now, though.
ReplyDeleteI love Thanksgiving! No presents to fret over!
Delete#9 (write your own caption): Hey! clark!! hey!
ReplyDeleteI thought he looked a little like he was heaving up his Thanksgiving dinner.
DeleteThat soap gives me the heebie jeebies! On a more serious note, I'm sorry to hear about your friend & I'm glad you got to see her.
ReplyDeleteI really think those are weevils, which would be fitting, since my brother tried to kill us all by feeding us weevils once upon a time ago. I'm so glad we got to visit our friend, too. She will be missed when she leaves us.
DeleteYour Thanksgiving week sounds wonderful.
ReplyDeleteThe turkey in #3 is cute!
It was busy but great! And the turkey was cute AND yummy!
DeleteWhat?! No mashed potatoes?!!
ReplyDeleteI'm sorry that your friend is in hospice. I can't imagine what it must have been like - to know you were saying goodbye. I hope that her passing is peaceful and pain free.
I had no idea the sport of volleyball was so...sportilly popular! I always sucked at it.
Sounds like you had a very nice Thanksgiving holiday. Now get to work on those Christmas decorations!!
There were mashed potatoes; there were not ENOUGH mashed potatoes, because my sister in law decided 5 lbs was enough, even though my brother usually makes 10 lbs. She will never live it down.
DeleteI hope they can keep her pain free, too! She's a wonderful lady!
Volleyball is a lot tougher than I thought it would be! My daughter has bruises on her hip bones all the time from sprawling out for the ball. I only ever played it recreationally. I wasn't bad but I couldn't overhead serve for the life of me.
your brother bears a striking resemblance to your chicken... as you well know. I still think we should photo shop him!
ReplyDeleteBoth pics would look pretty good on Wordless Wednesday....
DeleteThat turkey is super cute...and he looks yummy, too!
ReplyDeleteHe was delicious!
DeleteThe turkey is cute. And if my Kidzilla ate him? Major food reactions. Poor thing... But that Pilgrims and Indians preschool feast thing? Is that in the preschool Book of Stuff because Zilla's preschool school did that every year - two classes paired up and dressed as Pilgrims or Indians, all brought a piece of fruit to make "friendship fruit salad" and they had their feast together at lunchtime. And then they all had a nap, which we know happens right after a Thanksgiving feast! :D
ReplyDeleteAgain, sorry about your friend and glad that you and Emma got to see her.
Exciting things for Emma - how cool that the other girl remembered her and they deepened that connection!
Glad your Thanksgiving was great, bug soap and all! My Daughter is so ready to jump into Christmas preparation and I am so dragging my feet...feels overwhelming at the moment. I keep telling myself it will be simpler, easier, and less stressful this year because I am not tied to a classroom all day every day until the 23rd. Positive thinking...
You would have had to eat it for her, wouldn't you? I know it's politically incorrect to dress like Indians and all that, but it's so fun for them and they learn about the first Thanksgiving and how hard it was to be a Pilgrim. I have a book by Gail Gibbons that I read to the kids every year; it tells the story simply. On one page, it tells how the first winter was so hard on the Pilgrims that some of them even died. I never noticed until this year that in the background of the picture is a little group of Pilgrims, carrying a coffin, with a few others following. How did I not ever notice that before?! Hilarious!
DeleteWe get the kids full and send them home at noon!
I'm glad we went to see our friend, too, even though it was hard. She's 72 and didn't look it or act it. In a good way!
Emma is all that now that she has a senior Mizzou volleyball player following her on Instagram!
That soap had weevils in it, I'd bet my house on it.
I still haven't gotten the tree out, but I have the greenery hanging in the doorways and over the family room windows and the other chotchkies out (can you use a Yiddish word to describe Christmas stuff?). Candles in the windows. It's getting there. I hope to have time to get it done by Tuesday evening. Or that's my goal, anyway.
It was a great holiday! Anything that involves that much eating can't be bad!
ReplyDeleteYou don't think I look pure and simple in that picture?!
Emma was so excited to see Sarah play her last game. Such a nice girl!
I don't think I could use that soap. Nope, it's not happening.
ReplyDeleteTotally weevils, aren't they?
DeleteI'm so happy you had a great week with your family! This sounds awesome! Oh my goodness the weevils thing is hilarious! I don't think I would have taken the chance on that soap either!
ReplyDeleteIt's always fun to be with family (and sometimes a little trying, too). I hope my niece was right and that really was lavender buds, but I have my doubts about that.
DeleteOh, what a difficult thing to do, visiting a friend in hospice. I'm glad you went, despite how hard it was. You won't regret going, but you would regret not going.
ReplyDeleteGlad you had fun with the family, even if there weren't enough potatoes. That's a major faux pas, right there. More importantly, though, did you bring any pies?!?!
I have never been to a college volleyball game. Based on the speed and strength of high school boys' spikes, I imagine the college games would have me flinching the entire way through.
How cool for Emma!
Our preschool is old school and still does the Pilgrims and Indians, too.
I would have regretted not going to see her, and I'm glad it was at the hospital before they dismissed her to her home.
DeleteMy sister in law is going to get grief for years over the decision to make less potatoes. YEARS. I did NOT take pies, because they bought pies from a local bakery. I will show off my pie baking skills Christmas.
If you ever get a chance to see a college game, go. The ball goes so high and their hits are so hard! Even though they beat us, Alabama lost a point for being out of rotation and again for a dropped ball, so it can happen even in college ball!
Emma was SO excited!
I get tired of political correctness sometimes.
Oh, and THAT SOAP! I wouldn't have gone anywhere near it!
ReplyDeleteI never actually saw anything crawl, but I'm still sure they were weevils.
DeleteWhat a happy Pilgrim you make!
ReplyDelete#4 must have been hard, but I'm sure your friend appreciated the visit. It must have been a bittersweet moment.
I'm a happy Pilgrim because I live in a world with indoor plumbing.
DeleteIt was so hard, but I'm so glad we went! She served the Lord with gladness at all times.
You look so pretty dressed up as a Pilgrim! So sweet and innocent looking, you are :). I'm happy to hear you had a wonderful Thanksgiving.
ReplyDeleteI have to tell you that I find that soap a little suspicious and I think you were smart not to use it. If it's all the same to you, I think I'll skip the story about your brother feeding you weevils. Yuk!
Who wouldn't believe that I was a chaste and proper Pilgrim, anyway?
DeleteI think someone sold my niece weevil soap. Or else weevils like lavender. Either way, not good.
Does it help if I tell you my brother did this as an adult?!