This year we’ve got lots and lots to be thankful for.  In the past year, both of our dads have had surgery and both are doing really well now.  Frank’s new job is turning out to be even better than his old one.  And our biggest reason to be thankful is still cooking.

We celebrated all of these great things with friends and family this year.  First we had our 13th Annual Pre-Thanksgiving Feast.  Jeff was here again, keeping his title as the only person to have been at every single Feast.  They are about to move to NH, so next year will be the real test…will he make it back down?  We hope so!  Ed, Genta, their sons, and Sara were all new to Pre-Thanksgiving, and we were glad to have them join us.  Gina and Chip were supposed to be here, but she had her baby a mere 17 hours before the party started.  (Mom and baby Archer are doing well after an extremely short and exciting delivery!)  Charlie and Co. were out with the flu.  And we had a couple of other last minute switcharoos.  But we were very glad that Baby Schipegan held off and did not arrive to cancel the party or turn it into a potluck.  We were also thankful to have Suzanne’s help beforehand — she did a ton from helping move furniture to making the cornbread and several other things to helping with clean-up.  All so I didn’t have to.  Thank you Suzanne!!!  And thank you to the rest of the clean-up crew:  Amy, Katie, Sara, and anyone else I might be missing.  Photos from the Feast are here.

And then, a few days later, we celebrated Thanksgiving with both sets of parents.  I couldn’t travel so we were extra glad that they could all make the trip to come be with us here.  Frank’s parents arrived on Tuesday and spent all of Wednesday getting us organized and rearranging furniture in our bedroom to accommodate the new furniture they brought to us.  We should have had them arrange all the furniture in our house — our room looks fantastic now!  My parents arrived on Thursday afternoon and stayed at a relatively new B&B just up the road.  I’m glad we’ve got a nice option in our neighborhood — just a mile up the road and accessible by the bus.  We ate too much and played a rousing game of Settlers of Catan on Thursday.  Then on Friday we went to the American Indian Museum and had a nice dinner out in Chinatown.  And they all headed out on Saturday.  Photos from their visit are here.

Happy Thanksgiving to all!