Thursday, November 26th
Happy Thanksgiving to everyone! Gosh, this morning was a tough one -- I woke up very homesick and wishing I could be home with my family. However, as my day progressed, I felt better and better.
When I woke up, I made coffee (of course!) and then Joel and I began trying to adjust the antenna on the TV to get the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade. This was quite a task! We were moving the antenna around, bit by bit, for about 20 minutes, but the picture/sound still wasn't coming in clearly. Finally, Joel said he was going to just move the antenna around the whole room until he got good reception. As soon as he picked up the antenna set and held it above his head on one hand, the picture came in great! It was quite funny! I yelled "don't move!" and we found books to stack up to hold it in place.
I watched the parade for a few minutes and then my lovely family called and invited me to a Skype date! For those of you that don't know, Skype is an online video chatting software. Mom, Dad, Morgan, and Anthony all sat at the kitchen table with their laptop in the center, and they turned the camera around in circles as we talked so that I could say hi to everyone.
This year, I am so thankful for technology and the means to purchase it. It was SO nice to be able to sit on Skype for an hour or so this morning while drinking my coffee and visit with my family. It definitely wasn't as good as actually being with them, but it helped seeing them and it made me feel included still.
I am also very thankful that my sister is okay, because I found out that she got in a car accident last night on her way home from college, and I am so thankful that she wasn't hurt. (Love you Morg!)
After my Skype date, I watched a little bit more of the parade. Then, a little while later, my family called again and asked if I would "come to the table" on Skype one more time so that I could be involved in our tradition of going around the table and saying what we're thankful for. This is something that we always do on Thanksgiving, and even though it made me very homesick, I was happy that I could be apart of it.
So I watched my family at the dinning room table on my computer, and we all went around and said what we're thankful for. My mom made a cute placeholder for me at the table that said how proud my family is of me. Again, it made me really sad, but it was also extremely nice and I enjoyed it a lot.
After my last Skype date, I took a quick shower and got ready for my "Texan Thanksgiving" dinner at Luby's restaurant. I'm not sure if I've mentioned this in previous posts, but a board member of the B&GC donated gift-cards for our team to eat at Luby's for Thanksgiving. We were given up to $20 per person (which was a ton!), and Luby's had a special Thanksgiving dinner going all day.
Here's me in line with my gift-card. It was sort of buffet style -- you went down the buffet line and told the employees what you wanted and then paid for it at the end
Happy Thanksgiving to everyone! Gosh, this morning was a tough one -- I woke up very homesick and wishing I could be home with my family. However, as my day progressed, I felt better and better.
When I woke up, I made coffee (of course!) and then Joel and I began trying to adjust the antenna on the TV to get the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade. This was quite a task! We were moving the antenna around, bit by bit, for about 20 minutes, but the picture/sound still wasn't coming in clearly. Finally, Joel said he was going to just move the antenna around the whole room until he got good reception. As soon as he picked up the antenna set and held it above his head on one hand, the picture came in great! It was quite funny! I yelled "don't move!" and we found books to stack up to hold it in place.
I watched the parade for a few minutes and then my lovely family called and invited me to a Skype date! For those of you that don't know, Skype is an online video chatting software. Mom, Dad, Morgan, and Anthony all sat at the kitchen table with their laptop in the center, and they turned the camera around in circles as we talked so that I could say hi to everyone.
This year, I am so thankful for technology and the means to purchase it. It was SO nice to be able to sit on Skype for an hour or so this morning while drinking my coffee and visit with my family. It definitely wasn't as good as actually being with them, but it helped seeing them and it made me feel included still.
I am also very thankful that my sister is okay, because I found out that she got in a car accident last night on her way home from college, and I am so thankful that she wasn't hurt. (Love you Morg!)
After my Skype date, I watched a little bit more of the parade. Then, a little while later, my family called again and asked if I would "come to the table" on Skype one more time so that I could be involved in our tradition of going around the table and saying what we're thankful for. This is something that we always do on Thanksgiving, and even though it made me very homesick, I was happy that I could be apart of it.
So I watched my family at the dinning room table on my computer, and we all went around and said what we're thankful for. My mom made a cute placeholder for me at the table that said how proud my family is of me. Again, it made me really sad, but it was also extremely nice and I enjoyed it a lot.
After my last Skype date, I took a quick shower and got ready for my "Texan Thanksgiving" dinner at Luby's restaurant. I'm not sure if I've mentioned this in previous posts, but a board member of the B&GC donated gift-cards for our team to eat at Luby's for Thanksgiving. We were given up to $20 per person (which was a ton!), and Luby's had a special Thanksgiving dinner going all day.
Here's me in line with my gift-card. It was sort of buffet style -- you went down the buffet line and told the employees what you wanted and then paid for it at the end
I tried my hardest to re-create what I would have ate for a meal at home with my family. I had turkey, stuffing, green bean casserole, candied sweet potatoes, mashed potatoes and gravy, and pumpkin pie. This was a TON of food! Normally at home, I would take only a tiny bit of everything, but here, I was given giant portions on my plate!The food was actually really good. I missed dipping my turkey in cranberry sauce, but I had some of Dad's that he sent me when we got home later as a snack. The pumpkin pie was also not as good as mom and I normally make it -- I am looking forward to some yummy homemade pie when I come home for Christmas. (And yes, Mr. Engstrom, I will give you a head's up of when I'm coming so that you can be prepared with a delicious pie! haha!)
Here are all of the girls outside of our housing before going to eat at Luby's. This was my family for the day, and I was very thankful to spend the day with such wonderful people.
And here are the guys. I am not sure why Joel and Jared decided to strike that pose. It makes me think they're saying "ta-da" or something funny!
While we ate dinner at Luby's, we went around the table and all said what we were thankful for. My team leader suggested this idea, and it made me really happy because it felt for a minute like being home with my family. Everyone had really great things to say. Then we all gave a cheers to being together and caring about each other as a team. All in all, it was the best Thanksgiving celebration being away from home that I could have asked for.After Luby's, some of us took a nap (because we were so full!), and then later on we took a trip to Buc-ee Beans to get coffee drinks. Now people are watching movies and relaxing -- I have spent the past 3 hours updating my blog and writing to Eric. I want to write one final post, and then I will probably head to bed. We are doing ISP hours tomorrow, so we have to get up early.
I hope everyone had a very happy Thanksgiving. I miss and care about you all a lot, and I can't wait to see you over winter break! Read my following post about being thankful.
Love - Ashley
No comments:
Post a Comment