Thanksgiving!

Some years, Thanksgiving is a fairly simple holiday.... families gather, food is eaten, we talk about what we're thankful for, we all go home. This year, our Thanksgiving was a little more unconventional.

This was our year to do Thanksgiving with my family. Originally, the plan was to head up to Wisconsin for a typical sort of weekend, but then, plans changed! There was a move happening in Iowa, and who can sit around in Wisconsin eating when we could be helping? So, to Iowa, the family went.

My branch of the family was a little under the weather, heading into the weekend, so for Thursday we stayed home to see if we couldn't all get further along the path to health. Turns out, a friend of mine from church was having a big dinner and had a lack of guests (and she didn't mind our having colds), so we crashed her dinner. It was delightful!

Then, Friday, only Townshend and I were in condition to travel, so we left Hubby and Moon home and headed to Iowa. Once we got there, we jumped in and helped with the finishing touches of the move-prep.

We worked most of the afternoon and into the evening and got quite a lot accomplished. We even got in a quick load of a few odds and ends to the new place, rain notwithstanding.

Saturday was the big day; big truck, all the helpers and all the stuff. Happily, the rain took a break for the day. We started in early and it was a full force effort! They had a big truck, plenty of space for stowing all sorts of things:

At first it seemed like we might not fill it... however, load by load, fill it we did!

In the midst of it all, we took a lunch break.. food prep while being between houses requires a little ... creativity!

Before too long, it was back to work. We got to the new place and the unloading began. Bit by bit, everything was transferred until the truck was empty.

Slowly, things started to take shape inside... Saturday night the family helped move things around a little in the first baby steps of unpacking and making a new place a home.

view out the new kitchen window, just before the empty truck drove away

Sunday morning there was a storm on the horizon that was predicted to be a doozy.. so, Townshend and I stayed for the first hour of church and then hit the road to try to keep ahead of the weather. Bad weather aside, I really like road trips. There's a beauty to all types of scenery; green forests, urban skylines, deserts, farmland. I enjoy watching it go by and seeing the diversity of the world.

Though we passed several cars in the ditch, we managed to miss most of the nasty parts of the storm and get home without incident. Good thing too 'cuz that night it definitely did storm. Iowa got its 8 to 10 inches of snow and we, here in the Chicago area, got 4 or 5 inches of slushy wet, heavy, messy stuff.. so we got a snow day on Monday! It was perfect. A holiday weekend full of friends, family, helping and then resting.

I'd do it again in a heartbeat.