Giving Thanks & Decking the Halls

Our Thanksgiving was a little bit unusual this year. Jason had to work until 6am Thursday morning, so we had decided to not go anywhere so that he could sleep. The plan was to then have our own meal around 6 or 7 that evening. As it turned out, Jason did sleep all day and I prepared our Thanksgiving meal with most of the trimmings. Thursday morning, however, I received a phone call from Tiffany (the sister of my good friend, Brittany, and whose family I usually spend Thanksgiving with) and she begged me to come for dinner. They were eating at noon, so she said that I would have plenty of time to go home after and roast my turkey. So I decided to go and leave Jason to sleep. It was good meal and good time seeing everyone, and I came home and proceeded to work on our Thanksgiving meal. I believe everything was all ready to eat at about 7pm.

Here is my lovely Thanksgiving meal hot and waiting for Jason to wake up. The turkey and mash are covered in foil to hopefully stay warm. I went on about
cleaning up and doing other things, thinking that Jason was going to wake up soon. Time slowly ticked by and no Jason. Gunther and I watched a movie and still no Jason. Finally, at 10:00pm, I decided that it was time to go to bed because I had to work in the morning. But I was kind of hungry and wanted to try my food! So I went in and asked Jason if he wanted to wake up and eat with me or not. He felt so bad! He didn't realize he had slept that long and that the food had been ready for a while. He did get up and eat with me and then stayed up the rest of the night picking the turkey while I went to bed. And because he did sleep so late, I was able to thoroughly enjoy two full Thanksgiving meals in one day!

On Friday, I had the privilege of going to pick up my friend, Meja, and her boyfriend, Dan, at the airport. They had come over from Australia to spend Thanksgiving with her family in Oregon, and they came to stay with us for the week after. I was sooooo excited to see her; it had been about 3 years since we had been together. It was so much fun to have them here! Even though I had to work every single day, it made my days so much better knowing that I got to come home and hang out with her and get to know Dan. They did spend time visiting and catching up with other friends while they were here, but I felt super privileged to have them stay with us!

This is not a good photo of Meja, but they got to experience the start of a bad cold spell during their visit. Our house tends to be quite chilly anyways, but they had come from working on a cattle station in the hot, Australian desert to freezing temperatures. They drank lots of hot chocolate and wore beanies around the house to keep warm.

The day before they left, it snowed pretty good and the temperatures were below zero. Dan thought it amazing to feel temperatures that cold, while Meja was just excited to see snow for the first time in a couple of years.

Meja and I. The odd couple. I have no idea how we became as close of friends as we did in college because we are quite opposite in a lot of ways, but she is one of my best friends. I wish I could go live in Australia with her for a while. I am so thankful that she came all the way to Wyoming to visit me and the other folks here!

The last day that Meja and Dan were here, I got out the Christmas decorations and decorated the house.

Our Charlie Brown Christmas Tree with some Peanuts ornaments around the bottom.

This scene was Star Wars meets Charlie Brown at Christmas. Jason had the Star Wars ornaments and Legos of which he is quite fond. Unfortunately, Darth Vader and Yoda met their demise courtesy of Gunther one afternoon and they are no longer with us.

Our Mickey Mouse Christmas shelf. (Again, they come from Jason's collection.)

And our Random Christmas Shelf. I contributed the snowmen and the red car, the rest are Jason's. I believe there is a Batman car with Batman and Robin in it, there is a derby car with an acorn character in it, there's a convertible that I'm sure is of some significance to something, along with a rabbit in a shopping cart, a polar bear and penguin rocker, and Grumpy from Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs.

Dan had a great time checking out all of Jason's Christmas ornaments and he thought the Star Wars were the best part. (Must be a guy thing, I guess.) And just so you know, these ornaments are probably just a 1/3 of what Jason has. All the rest wouldn't stand by themselves. We'll have to get a real tree sometime in order to use all of his G.I. Joe, Star Wars, and Superhero ornaments.

For the outside of our house, I did hang a giant red bow on the front door. I haven't taken a photo of it yet, because it's been just to cold to go outside just to take a picture!