In All Things Give Thanks

What a wonderful and eventful Thanksgiving week we had!

This week Mary performed "Rockin' Robin" with her Ballroom Dance Team.  She was assigned the "front and center" spot, and we were on the front row.  I'll have to add pictures of that later, as Peter has them on his iPod.

Wednesday we took off for Washington!  Grandpa reserved four nights of a hotel room - what a generous gift!  Peter and Libby had a blast swimming in the pool every day.

We spent a lovely day at Michelle and Gérard's house for Thanksgiving.  Bruce lost his fool mind and let Peter go on a motorcycle ride with cousin Philippe.  Apparently, it was Bruce that gave Philippe a ride on a motorcycle when Philippe was about Peter's age, so Philippe said he was just returning the favor.  

I asked Peter how fast they went and he said, "We went tops 35."  I said, "That is a flat out lie, because Philippe has never gone that speed in his life."  Peter started to laugh and  he said, "I didn't want to tell you..."  Yeah - that's what I thought!  Now Peter won't stop talking about motorcycles.  Uh-huh, just like I said - Bruce lost his fool mind when he let Peter do that!

Dinner was wonderful.  Michelle made a name tag for everyone's place at the table.  Everyone's had a pilgrim and an Indian, or some combination of the two.  Bruce and Philippe had turkeys.  ha ha  Michelle has some of her Mom's "tease" left in her.

Tristan, Nicole, Matthew (behind Nicole), Sarah, Oliver (Nicole's brother-in-law), Philippe, Manu (Michael's best man from Switzerland), Michael, Natalie and Peter.

Bruce, Stuart and Robin (Nicole's in-laws).  You can see the back of Deloris' head, and Dad's hand sitting next to her.

The next morning, Bruce and I and the children went off to tour Seattle and Poulsbo.  Our first stop was the Seattle Temple!

As always, the Temple feels like a refuge amidst the storm, even on the grounds.  It was wonderful to be there.  We have good memories of attending that Temple for the 6 1/2 years that we lived in Washington!

Then it was on to downtown Seattle.  We drove around the Seattle Center and the building where Bruce used to work.  So many memories!  Then we drove down to the ferry dock and got on the ferry!

 It's always fun to do something different, and riding a ferry is just that!  Peter loved seeing how it left the dock and then landed.  We drove onto Bainbridge Island and then on up to Poulsbo.  Velkomenn til Poulsbo!  Loved to see that sign again!

We parked the car in downtown and strolled down through the shops to the bakery!  Everyone picked out some treats, and then we went down to the marina to eat them.  We had to take a picture on these logs that the kids loved to play on when they were younger.

Then we walked down the boardwalk to the little park and played!

It's so beautiful in the Northwest!  But it was overcast and moist - a completely typical day - so it was a good demonstration of how it was 90% of the time.  I just need more sun than that!  Ha ha

Then we back to the shops and this is who we ran into walking along the street!  I love the "old time" look of this Santa Clause!

We spent a couple of hours in the Dancing Brush making painting ceramic mugs.

It was fun to do something creative like that.  At first Bruce said, "No, I'm not going to do one.  I'm not creative.  I can't think of what to put on it."  So the rest of us started, and he sat there with us.  After about ten minutes, he started to draw on the paper in front of him, and then he stood up and went and got a mug and said, "OK, I'll do one."  He ended up drawing this amazing scene of a llama pack trip with the mountains, the llamas, the packs and lead ropes, a river, etc.  It was really good!  We laughed about him not being "creative".  Duh!  Bruce has more access to his right brain than most people.  It's what makes him such a good programmer.  It was fun to see a little art come out in all of us!

We then went and drove by our old Caldart house.  It has a neighborhood totally built up around it with a real paved road with sidewalks going up to it!  So weird!  But the old house was still sitting there the same, only it had a red door instead of a green one.  The Veteran Street house had been painted a grey/black color instead of the old blue that it used to be.  It looked scary!

When Mary sent it to her friend, he replied with, "You mean you were born in an old shack in the woods?"  ha ha!  That's what it looks like, but really, it was a nice house and we loved it there!

We spent Friday evening helping to decorate the Maltby Community Club for the wedding.  Bruce did a lot of ladder work getting the ceiling decorations just right.  I drove back to the Michelle's house and found the missing box of vases, which was a big relief to everybody.

Saturday was Natalie and Michael's wedding!

Even Tinka had a dress and was in the wedding party!  We had a wonderful time - it was a beautiful wedding, and we couldn't ask for a better person for Natalie to marry than Michael.  He is a treasure!

Bruce was especially useful with his leatherman, opening everybody's Sparkling cider bottle!

Natalie's hair and dress were gorgeous!  We had a fun time dancing at the end.  Even Grandpa and Deloris joined in on YMCA, although Grandpa couldn't quite get the hands movements down to make the Y M C A.  But it was fun to see him up and dancing!  Natalie had a dozen red roses at every table, so in the clean-up, Mary went on a photo shoot and took dozens of pictures with roses.  Here is a beautiful one that she posted to Instagram.

 I like this one even better, though.

We missed Jesse the whole weekend, but she was down with Tori and our next-door neighbors and they had a great time together.  They went on a photo shoot too, and took this picture, which I love!

My goodness - could our daughters be any more beautiful!  They are beautiful inside and out, that is what is so lovely, and it shows in their countenances!

We had a safe trip home, with Bruce driving most of the way.  We are glad to be home, and grateful for so many blessings this Thanksgiving week!