Thanksgiving

I'm so grateful for a day to celebrate the power of gratitude. Nash came home from school beaming in his "feast" attire the day before Thanksgiving. Our family theme this year is "Be Grateful." Even though we could all improve on this concept, it's exciting to see pure gratitude seeping in from time to time.

A good chunk of our Thanksgiving was spent doing yard work with turkey roasting and football games on in the background. We had lots of helpers over so we took advantage of their willingness to prep our yard for the snow. We usually can't rake leaves until the end of November; much later in the year than I remember tackling the job in Michigan.

The yard work aspect really began the day before Thanksgiving when I told the boys to go enjoy one last jump on the trampoline before we took it down for the winter. I was a bit startled when I saw Blake carrying heavy power tools into the backyard. I didn't even know we owned a leaf blower but Blake was determined to remove the leaves from the trampoline with heavy machinery. After some help from his Grandpa, they got the leaf blower up and running.

The power tool didn't actually remove many leaves but it sure blew Nash over.

On Thanksgiving morning, we took down the trampoline and blew leaves from all over the yard into one big pile.

Crew stayed outside in the brisk November air for hours and looked like a wet dog with matted leaves in his hair after "helping" to disassemble the trampoline, hammock and sandbox and hose them all down.

He was our most energetic helper in bagging up all those leaves.

Once our yard looked sufficiently barren, we drove up into the mountains for our traditional Thanksgiving Day hike.

The boys sure made me nervous with the steepness they fearlessly climbed.

Rock throwing was also a hit as usual.

As was sticking out tongues for the camera.

We came home in time to pull the turkey out of the oven and bake the rolls that were rising all day.

I didn't add much to the tablescape since the last time we hosted Thanksgiving except some gold tipped feathers. I would have loved to switch it up this year, but we had just a few (four) things that took priority.

The meal tasted delicious as always and we were reminded once again how blessed we are with family members surrounding us in good health and high spirits.