We weren't about to let a "little" snow get in the way of our Thanksgiving celebration in Lewistown! In fact, my being a complete scaredy cat about travelling in the snow totally paid off this time. We decided to leave home on Tuesday before Thanksgiving right after we got the kids picked up from school. They were thrilled to have an extra day to spend at Nana and Pap's! (So was I!) It had been quite a long time since we were in Lewistown and parked for a couple of days at a time, so we all welcomed the chance to spend some longer amounts of time with our Lewistown family.
As you can imagine, when the kids started seeing the flakes flying in the air on Wednesday morning, they were very anxious to get outside to play in it. It didn't take long for it to pile up, and after lunch time we bundled them all up and sent them outside to play. Jason took charge of being the sled pusher and sent them all flying down Nana and Pap's BIG hill in the yard. Everyone had a great time! The hardest part for them was definitely hiking back up the hill, but they all did it many, many times.
We warmed them all up with hot chocolate and some games inside (truth be told...the hot chocolate is probably everyone's favorite part of playing in the snow!)
Thursday morning we got up and headed down to Libby and Zig's house where the cooking was in full swing! It was their first chance to host Thanksgiving dinner in their new house, and we were all thrilled to be there with them. It smelled delicious--- I think one of my favorite parts of Thanksgiving is how awesome the meal smells while it is cooking. Thank goodness sniffing the wonderful cooking aromas doesn't have calories...because we certianly did enough damage with the eating part!
The kids enjoyed lots and lots of play time together at Libby's house. They were into everything, but all enjoyed watching some of the floats on the parade and playing with all of the girls' toys. My bet is that Nana and Pap were perfectly fine to have the mess confined to a different house than their own for at least some of the day.
After we ate and had some visiting time (with a surprise visit from Jeannine-- YAY!) we decided to go up to Valley View with spend some time with Pappy Ray. It was a hard decision, but he had decided not to come down to eat dinner with us because of how slippery the roads and sidewalks were due to the snow the day before). So if he wasn't comfortable coming to us, we took our show on the road to him, and hopefully brightened his day a bit while we were there. We took him some leftovers of filling balls and gravy, as well as some pumpkin pie. He assured us that he would be enjoying them for supper that night. I think he enjoyed seeing the kids, and I believe they said hello to a lot of the residents there while they were walking around in the hallway. Pap and Jason had some PSU discussion, always a favorite topic between the two of them, and then we headed back to Mom and Dad's.
It's hard to believe that that was the last time I would see Pap. I asked him on that visit what Santa Claus could bring him for Christmas, and his response was, "Just ask him if I can have a few more months." Breaks my heart now, but I know that he is celebrating the most beautiful Christmas in Heaven this year--- with my Gram (and ample raisin filled cookies!) and his parents, and the Lord himself. Although he didn't get his wish, I have a feeling he isn't wishing to return to this world even for a second.
We headed back to Turbotville on Friday morning to get some Christmas decorating done at our house and prep for the PSU/Michigan State football game on Saturday afternoon. Little did we know at that point what a disaster that was going to turn into with the closure of the grass lots that I posted about. Luckily it all worked out and we got tons accomplished on our Friday at home. All in all it turned out to be a special visit home-- one of our favorites in recent history. It always feels good to be home...and this trip was certainly no exception.
No comments:
Post a Comment