Thanksgiving Memories

An unusual Thanksgiving at that! This year we decided to go a different rout for Thanksgiving. Usually my mother or I hold a large dinner and we have anywhere from 12 to 20 people. This year I had been a bit run down after recovering from a head cold and still dealing with an inflamed lung from pleurisy. The day started off by me calling my mom in the morning to wish her a happy Thanksgiving. When she answered her phone, I did not say hello, instead I made the calling and gobbling noises of a turkey. For some reason I am capable of making very realistic turkey sounds. So i spoke for a few in my gobbling voice! Gave my mom a good laugh to start the day. My parents made the hour and a half trip south to come visit the three of us (me, Tom and Destiny). We decided earlier that we would eat our Thanksgiving Day Dinner at Ted's Montana Grill. I choose a restaurant that I knew served quality, wholesome, made from scratch (sort of) food. Being the 'green' people we are, I had to choose an environmentally friendly and aware place to dine for this event. Ted's is very conscious when it comes to the environment! From their recycled paper straws, tables clothes and such, to all glass and no GMO'd nonsense to them using gray water and receiveing their electricity from wind turbines. We felt Ted's was a well thought out choice for dinner. Of course once my parents arrived at our home, we carpooled to Ted's and met one of our family friends, also Toms co-worker at the restaurant. There were a total of 6 of us sitting down to dinner to enjoy each others company. It was different as I am not used to going to dinner for Thanksgiving. It is always myself or my mother hosting a large family event. I must say though, the stress was minimal and having no cleanup afterwards was simply relaxing and wonderful. Though I did deeply miss the large gathering I have grown accustomed to.

After dinner, our friend went to visit his boy and my parents rode back home with us. Upon arriving home, Destiny (my 12 year old daughter) wanted to play Rock Band on the PS3. A while back I had traded my car in on several items, one of those items being a large HD projector and screen. We have had much family fun with this. My mother, Destiny & I took to singing, playing guitar and drums. I wont go into details but I believe will will band my mother from playing the guitar ever again... just kidding Mom! ;-) Destiny rocks on the drums and hopes to take actual drumming lessons in the near future. All 5 of us gathered in the large family room with the wood burner to stay nice and cozy. My dad sat on the couch and watched us girls make fools of ourselves and pretend we were really on stage in a rock band. I couldn't resist capturing a couple shots of my 50+ year old mother singing Black Sabbath's Paranoid. She pulled Ozzy off pretty well! She got a 99% out of 100 on her score. Who knew my mom was secretly hiding her Ozzy side!

Here is my mom singing the song Paranoid by Black Sabbath while Destiny plays the drums:



While I had the camera out, my mom knew I was snapping a few shots of her singing. She decided to flip me a friendly bird to show her disapproval of the camera, however I wont post that one or she may flip me the bird again (giggles).



We continued to play the Rock Band game for quite a while as we were all having such a good time. I mostly played guitar until my mom decided to give her lungs a rest. Before they left to head home, I decided to give them a good laugh! I changed the song on the game over to Iron Maiden, I then sang Run to the Hills! Now for those of you that know this song, you know it is a challenge to sing but you can have fun with it. I let loose and had a blast, singing in my lowest voice then taking it as high pitched as I could while singing "Run to the hills... Run for your lives...." Yes, it was funny. My parents were bot laughing at the animated voices I was projecting from my little body. My mom felt the need to capture me on the camera as well. However, she missed me dancing on the floor and 'really' playing the part.. shewww! My daughter Destiny killed (in a good way) on the drums for this hard song! And by the way, we couldn't get the guys to play in the band. I guess that makes them our personal groupies? hehehehe

Even though this wasn't a normal and traditional Thanksgiving, we really enjoyed ourselves. Despite all the current going ons in all of our lives, we really do have an abundance to be thankful for! For me, this is the first year out of the last 6 years that I haven't been heavily battling and dying from the cdiff dis-ease. That alone is worth a million thanks!

Tom & I feel blessed that we still have our parents, all alive and in decent health. We have each other, a home (though I'm not sure for how long), but we still have it for now and it keeps us warm and dry. We are fortunate in many ways that others would consider petty. To us, these small things are what matter more than any of it. We are blessed to have family and each other. That alone is enough to be highly thankful and grateful for!

I hope you and yours had a wonderful and blessed holiday and weekend. Here is to you and yours!

Namaste,
Rainbow Tree