Thanksgiving

The last few weeks have really flown by! It seems like we had just moved in, started unpacking boxes, mowing lawns and then here we are with Thanksgiving behind us and in the not too distant future - Christmas!

AND I STILL have not updated you with pictures of our kitchen and renos. ok - my plan is to get on that this weekend. I'll get my daughter to help me with a video and some stills. We have done a little bit of work on the house - but I gotta say that it is getting harder and harder to get motivated to finish emptying boxes and the last little bits and pieces! We are enjoying our space though.

We got a real test run of our new space over Thanksgiving. We had 13 adults and 2 children for supper (ok, we didn't actually eat these people!). We had 13 adults and 2 children over to eat Thanksgiving supper! It was my kids, a couple significant others and 3 young men from Austria/Switzerland. These men work with my 'daughter' on the farm out at Sperling and had never experienced a 'family' Thanksgiving celebration. So it was fun to host them and feed them and play games as a family.

We did the whole turkey, potato, stuffing, cranberry sauce (not from a can), creamed corn and of course pumpkin pie and apple pie (homemade... at Costco!). The beautiful part of all of this is that we had a ton of room!! We had, at times, 5 people in the kitchen either preparing, cleaning, serving or just chatting - and we could get around each other. AND at the same time we had a bunch of people at the dining room table playing cards!! It was fantastic and I was thankful for the moments we had that late afternoon and evening.

ps. We also did some slacklining in the afternoon (oh, yeah, I am right up with the hipsters!!). Dexter set us up between two trees on the boulevard in front of our house and we all tried to walk the tight rope.

This is the slack line.

This is Dexter helping Bennie across the slackline - Bentley decided he needed to wear his hockey gloves to oma and opa's for Thanksgiving!!

In some of these pictures, you can start to see our kitchen. We don't have the tile up on the wall - that is a next spring project. But... I don't want to ruin the video! hang on - it is coming - with tips and tricks!

(this is a shot of our dining room - since then we have hung up the pictures!)

(This is a blurry shot of our living roomwith Bennie running... again!)

How is my dad you ask? Thanks for asking! Dad is fantastic - all things considering. He is now officially done the chemo treatments and as of tonight he has only two more radiation treatments left. He did have a fever after his last chemo and mom took him to emergency where the janitor and some nurses ran some blood tests. (Sometime you ask my dad about the 'janitor' who took his blood!) He ended up being fine - good blood count and all.

I was honoured to have the opportunity to spend the day with my dad at his second last chemo appointment. Thanks to my workplace for giving me this time - it was very precious. Dad and I headed to Health Sciences Cancer Care at 7:30 a.m. and only got home after 3:00 p.m. - I can't believe my dad isn't more tired... I WAS EXHAUSTED!!

What an amazing place Cancer Care is at Health Sciences. http://www.cancercare.mb.ca/ It is beautiful and peaceful and the people are attentive and caring. Volunteers who offer friendly smiles along with coffee, tea, juice, cookies, newspapers and even soup for dad. The respect that is shown to the patients is a beautiful thing to watch. As I sat in a chair (slightly more uncomfortable then dad's lazy boy - but like I am going to complain... excuse me, nurse, could you roll in another lazyboy for me? This chair... just a little hard on the behind.) ... but i digress... As I sat in a chair beside dad as he was hooked up to the fight for life drugs, I got to watch a 76 year old man (sorry, dad - gave away your age) spread love and laughter around the room like a contagion. He was witty (as witty as Warkentin humour can be) and charming and flirty and never ever was a complaint heard. We enjoyed visiting with each other. We talked about things from the obvious - cancer - to the play I went to see at CMU (Listening for Grace by Ted Swartz http://www.listeningforgrace.com/ ) which talked about a father and son and their walk with the church during the son's coming out. We chatted religion, children, politics (and let me tell you - for me that is a stretch). We laughed, we cried, we were passionate and real. My dad holds an incredibly sacred and special place in my heart. This time together only solidified that. My dad is a role model that I want to imitate as I journey through life. His jokes are a little, ummmm, sad at times but they are coming from a joyful and fun heart - so you gotta laugh every time!! He talked about coming back to CancerCare and volunteering himself - giving back. He would do a great job at making people smile or comfort those that need comfort.

Dad is doing well. THe next step is surgery - we are not sure when that will happen. But when it does, I know that my dad will walk into that with grace, a little trepidation and some kind of joke for the doctors and nurses caring for him.

Thanksgiving. It was already a few weeks ago, but it should be a daily thing. There are things to be thankful for. Even when things get tough, we can be thankful for something. Life is throwing all kinds of curveballs in my life right now - but family, new friends, role models - all point me to a God that is walking with me and helping catch the crazy curveballs and knuckle balls of life. I pray that He is part of your world too - invite him in, let him show you the Thankful moments of life.