Low-Key Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving was exactly what we wanted this year--subdued. As the weather dropped by 40 degrees from the previous day, Keri baked a chocolate pecan pie (easy) and Neal made apple sage dressing and baked bread. We watched some of the parade, perused the Black Friday ads, called family, and typed up our Christmas newsletter.
About five o'clock we headed over to our friends, the Garvins, for dinner. We were joined by our friends, the Dickensons. Dinner was simple but traditional and oh so tasty. Later we were joined by the Goode's, ate pie and played board games while the kids played and watched movies.
Neal did wake a bit early (but not crazy early) and took advantage of a few bargains before heading to work today.

We hope you had a nice Thanksgiving too. We are truly thankful for the numerous blessings God has given us, especially this year. We are grateful for medical insurance and returning health. We received so much support from our church, friends, and family--prayers, babysitting, meals, house cleaning, yard work, preschool opportunities for Sophie, cards, and well wishes. It really helped us to function through a difficult time. We truly appreciate the eternal perspective that the gospel of Jesus Christ offers. God has revealed his love for us repeatedly and most often through those around us. Thank you.

Super Trouper

(NOTICE: For those of you who wanted to see Sophie ride the sheep, the Mutton Bustin' video is at the bottom of this post. She gets out of the gate about 27 seconds into the video.)

Someone unanimously sent us ABBA Mania tickets to celebrate Keri's completion of chemotherapy. Keri loves...no...LOVES ABBA. There is love of God, then family, then ABBA--and the last two get jumbled sometimes.

So thanks to a couple of friends jumping in to babysit, Neal and Keri were off to "feel the beat of the tambourine, oh yeah." Such a great time! Even Neal got into it and he is not a die hard ABBA fan (how sad is that?!).

So whoever sent us the tickets, we'd like to say, "thank you for the music."
Couldn't take pictures inside the performance hall but let's just imagine shiny boots, and ungodly amount of sequins and spandex. Too much fun!

Turkey Calls

This week we've been talking a lot about Thanksgiving to prep for next week.

1. We've been reading children's Thanksgiving books which are not historically accurate by any account. The devastation of the white man's smallpox on the Native American population is not really a warm and fuzzy story.

2. We have listened to and practiced Thanksgiving hymns (see video).

3. We have listened to various turkey calls on the Internet. The wild turkey communicates far beyond "gobble, gobble." We heard what are identified as clucks, putts, yelps, cuttings, and even purrs. Who knew?

4. In preschool, Sophie has made a Native American headdress (which resembles patriotic bunny ears - one red and one blue paper feather on a white headband) and the token traced hand turkey.

5. And we have been playing a goofy game of Name That Tune where the only word you can sing is "Gobble, gobble."

Our kids will be so confused when we serve ham next week instead of the traditional bird.

What is she singing? "For health and strength and daily food, we praise thy name, oh Lord."

Western Heritage Festival

Yeeeeeeehaw! We attended the Texas Stampede Western Heritage Festival twice today! This morning we saw a blacksmith and a farrier at work, visited the petting zoo, and cheered on Sophie in the Stick Horse Rodeo!

Both kids loved the petting zoo. Rhys was not afraid of the animals and seemed to be a fan of the baby pigs. Sophie and Rhys fed the animals. Sophie noted that feeding them "tickles."

This is Sophie and her friend from preschool, Ben. They are waiting for the Stick Horse Rodeo. Sophie was chosen to participate in the color guard and lead the parade around the arena (see video).

It was like a real little rodeo from start to finish. Sophie did the barrel race. She threw the required figure 8s out the window and free styled it. That's our cowgirl! She got a shiny blue ribbon for doing such a good job.After naps for the kids and mommy, we returned to the festival for the Mutton Bustin' event. For those of you who don't know what that is, let us explain. First you sign your own precious child's life away for liability reasons, then you put that child on a sheep and say "hang on" and let them go.

When Sophie woke up from her nap, Keri asked, "Do you want to go ride a sheep?" and our sweet, unknowing girl thought that was a great idea.Yep, that's our little cowgirl on the back of that sheep. He jetted straight out and then took an immediate turn until Sophie and the sheep met up with the railings of the arena. They didn't hit hard but thank goodness for that helmet. I loved it when the announcer told the staff to "scrape her off." It was over is seconds. The adults were always quick to help the kids up.
She loved it! No tears, just excitement. And you can bet your boots she got another shiny blue ribbon! We are so pleased that she is willing to try things and be a bit of a dare devil sometimes.

Chemotherapy Completed!

To celebrate Keri's completion of chemotherapy, we wanted to try something new so we attended an opera. We could either sit at home or sit at the opera so we chose the latter. We saw Anna Bolena at the new Dallas Opera in downtown. Although we know things do not turn out well for Henry the VIII's 2nd wife it was still nice to have the English subtitles for this Italian sung performance.

Keri is elated to be done with approximately 10 months of chemotherapy. She actually cried for joy and relief after finishing. Should be a few weeks or so before she feels more like her old self again. She will continue to get blood work done while the chemo is still in her system. She will have her mediport surgically removed sometime in November or early December. Keri will continue to have regularly scheduled body and brain scans for the next few years.

Thanks for all the support we have received from our family and friends. We love you and appreciate they love and help we had during this year.

Previous Quote of the Blog

If you really want to do something, you'll find a way. If you don't, you'll find an excuse. - Jim Rohn

An Award!

Every month we get together with a fairly large group of friends and have a potluck dinner and catch up with each other. Well, at this dinner, our friends recognized Keri's last week of chemo (only 3 more doses to go) with an award. It was to acknowledge that she had been strong, determined, and "kicked cancer's butt." What Keri is most excited about is that she now has documentation that she is awesome.