Thankful for Thanksgiving

Do you have that tradition at Thanksgiving when family and friends are gathered around the table of going around and saying what it is you are thankful for? Thanksgiving time does cause us to think at least once or twice about the things and the people that we are grateful for.  Usually things like family and friends, nice places to live and having a job are at the top of the list.  Every year at Thanksgiving we are with family for a day or two, enjoying each other's company, laughing together, playing games, watching football, watching the kids run around and do what they do, and of course eating the most amazing meal of the year.  This year, for the Blackburn family, Thanksgiving looked a little (okay a LOT) different than it usually does.  Thursday morning I kissed the kids (and husband) goodbye and sent them all off to school.  It felt strange and almost wrong.  I thought the day would come and go with little interruption to our new normal and didn't really account for the strangeness we all would feel on this first "holiday" away from home.  That evening we were all out of sorts for missing our families and friends and decided to go to Burger King with our sadness.  Jeff and I tried our hardest to make it a "thankful evening" but to no avail. The boys were thankful for things like "planes that will take us back home" and for the other one being the "best farter I know".  What!?  This is not exactly what we were hoping for.  We did get to talk and skype with family which was nice, but no replacement for the real deal.

The guy at the BK lounge apparently does not know what NO fries means. 

 I think I'm counting at least 4 there.  

Friday evening felt a little more normal.  Our American friends Joy and Michael with their daughter Riley came to our house to celebrate a proper Thanksgiving with us. We did things a little differently... but had fun in the process.  The turkey and stuffing were leftovers from someone else's thanksgiving(!), and with limited availability of ingredients, the sides were not "mom's" but were still good (especially Joy and Michael's amazing sweet potatoes).

Canned pumpkin is a strange phenomenon in this land and is virtually nowhere to be found.  The mad hunt began as I asked for it in every grocery store I could find. Each time I was met with blank stares and questions like, "Pumpkin, like the round orange vegetable??  In a tin???  I've never heard of this."  Someone told me they'd heard that a store outside of town had a few cans and unbelievably I got one!  This was going to be my first pie making experience here and I was pleased that the worst thing that happened was the "soy sauce" look it had on the top of it.  We have a European oven with symbols that I still don't quite understand.  I mostly have the celsius thing figured out but the fact that it is also a fan oven has thrown a serious wrench in anything good I had going for me in the cooking/baking arena.  I set the timer to check on the pie a whole 15 minutes before I should have and it was still burnt on top! It seemed not to phase anyone and we were all happy to have this little luxury.  

We are thankful for friends near and far, for family who love us and for a church home 4,000 miles away.  We are thankful for those supporting us.  We are thankful for every prayer offered on our behalf.  We are thankful for each other.  We are thankful for a place to live, for this wild and crazy adventure.  For being gently forced into this deeper place of trusting God with it all.  And for all that God has provided this far.  In the freshness of all this recent change we felt ourselves simply being thankful for 'Thanksgiving'.