Thanksgiving Weekend #2

Saturday was pretty much the "big day". That's when we ate our Thanksgiving meal and did lots of activities. My cousin Alice, her hubby Brian, and kids Joseph & Charlotte arrived late morning.

For some reason we don't have a picture with their whole family. So, this is the best I have - minus Joseph. (He's 3 1/2 yrs.) Alice is also expecting again, and due in June. Thus she wasn't feeling so great being in her first trimester. :(

Rebecca was the "kitchen organizer" and did great making sure everyone had their assigned tasks ready in time for eating at noon. Thanks, Bec! We had all the traditional fare, and it was delicious! Here's a few pics of us eating. We had 32 people there, so we were spread out into 3 rooms.

Emily's not just acting weird in this pic she saying, "I'm Full!" She's a lovable, goofball!

I know some of you are interested in pics of Emily and Jason, so since she has been quite remiss on her own blog, here are a few. =)

Our kids were quite excited to see Aunt Emily (or as Joanna says - Aunt Elomy) and Uncle Jason. Here they are gettin' some lovin'. (They were quite excited to see Auntie Becca too, but we didn't get any pics of their lovin'.)

For those of you who have never been to my parents place, Koinania , here are a few scenic pictures.

The lake

The cabin on the lake, which Daniel and I stayed in for 2 nights until Em and Jason arrived and got dibs. :) It felt like we were miles away from the kids on our own little vacation. NICE!

This is 5 acres of creek property my parents recently bought just down the road from their 100 acre farm. We call it "Grandma's Creek".

After lunch the kids had fun playing with the dogs. We ended up having 6 dogs there!

They also did a little bit of fishing.

I love this pic of my cousin Andy and his daughter Paige fishing together.

For any of you that know my mom, you know she loves a great find! Well, this is an old outhouse she had moved to the lake and is now where she stores all the fishing gear. It's probably the only "fishing outhouse" in existence! :)

We also had a bonfire by the lake, which is always fun!

There were 4 wheeler rides going on, too!

Jami and Paige on 4 wheeler

Jami and all her kids

Richard and some of his girls took a turn.

Daniel and Isaac

Daniel and Joanna

I love Joanna's expression in this one, pure joy! Daniel also took the older girls and me for our turns, but we don't have pics of that.

Some people went for walks.

Here are my Grandparents getting ready to go on one.

I and my sisters went for one, too. It was so nice to chat just the 3 of us! (Gen, we walked the hill all the way to 49. Yeah!)






(I'm not quite sure what Emily is doing here, but we had a great time! She always keeps us laughing.)

As we were heading back, Mom and Jami came on the 4 wheeler to check on us. I guess we had been gone for awhile; you know how it is when sisters get together and talk!

We also had a pinata, but for some reason didn't get any pictures of that. We were planning on playing some football, but there just wasn't enough hours in the day. :(

In the evening, we decided to have a little Poker tournament. It started with 12 of us. We each put in 2 bucks and the top 3 winners would split the pot, 1st-60%, 2nd-30%, and 3rd-10%. So we drew cards for the starting teams. About half of the players had experience and the other half were taught or reminded how to play along the way. Here we are getting our tables and teams ready.

My table ended up being all beginners, but my Uncle Bob, who very patiently taught us how to play.

We played until each table had eliminated 3 players, then merged and played to the win! We ended up playing for about 5-6 hours, so near the end people weren't making the wisest decisions. It ended up that my cousin Andy won first place, my sweet honey came in second, and I came in third! (After being the only girl in the finals and starting with significantly less chips than everyone else. It was pretty cool, though I know they were getting tired of me asking, "How many more cards do I get?") We got a whopping $10 total for coming in 2nd and 3rd. Woohoo!

Here are the winners!

I had thought that all of us were biting our chips and it wasn't until I saw this picture that I realized I'm the only one doing it!

Hannah and Abby had a lot of fun playing with Zach and Paige. This game of pulling each other around in their sleeping bags, was especially fun!

Joanna and Grandpa having fun together!

We're looking forward to Christmastime now, and my immediate family being all together again! We hope you all had a blessed Thanksgiving, too.