Thanksgiving Family get together

artwork by Scout

 Recipe for a family Thanksgiving:
- One large house - 5 bedrooms, 4.5 bathrooms, hot tub, 4 TV's, one large kitchen with a larger table, one ping pong table, 2 DVD players,
- One daughter and son-in-law driving from Virginia
- One daughter and son-in-law driving from Florida
- One college student son from Idaho on an airplane
- Two grandparents driving from Texas (good thing we enjoy road trips)
- 6 grandchildren, ages 9 to 1
- The Outer Banks of North Carolina
- tons of food, movies, books, puzzels, snacks and more snacks, lots of Diet Coke
- 4 computers, 5 I-Pads, numerous cell phones
- one mid-night power failure that thankfully only lasted several hours.  Non flush-able toilets and 5 children...... HELP!!!
Flavor with love, laughter and patience
Bake for one week with windy chilly weather.

view from our dining rooms window

Currituck Lighthouse

 Outer Banks Center for Outdoor Education.
Future Duck hunters?  Complete with a stuffed black lab just like Rio! 

 Remember those pillow I made in September? These smiles and happy kids made all the computer hassles well worth it.

 North Carolina Aquarium on nearby Roanoke Island

Doctoring a pretend sick sea turtle.

 After Thanksgiving dinner, we asked the kids what they were thankful for, and Zach said, "the hot tub!" Gotta love his honesty.

We sure love these wonderful silly kids!

Two wonderful amazing vigilant Moms

 We enjoyed one beautiful sunny day on the beach. 

Atlantic Ocean 1, Ellie 0

Katy

Alex

 We were excited to visit the Wright Brothers National Memorial at nearby Kitty Hawk. The brothers flew that first airplane in 1903; truly amazing to think that just 18 years later, a team of Americans flew those new flaggled airplanes around the world! 

The famous latch hook rug project that everyone worked on

Uncle Alex and Gracie

Book Recommendations

 

This Summer and Fall I re-read two beloved childhood favorites, only this time finishing the complete series, having read aloud several of each when my kids were little.
The Chronicles of Narnia. I enjoyed some better than others; my favorites were The Voyage of the  Dawn Treader and The Last Battle. C.S. Lewis had so many amazing insights into Christian truths. 
My favorite in The Little House on the Prairie Collection is Farmer Boy.  The entire series is a wonderful look into life on the American frontier in the late 19th century. I found it amusing though that Mrs. Wilder never mentioned the family having an outhouse.  Lol!
Two adult books that I especially enjoyed lately are:
Caleb's Crossing by Geraldine Brooks.  This is based on a real person, Caleb, the first Native American to graduate from Harvard in 1665.  I just love historical fiction.

The Rent Collector is the best book I've read in a long, long time. Based around a real family living in a dump in Cambodia; it is about hope and redemption.  I highly recommend it. 

Had to get ready for the movie, so re-read The Hobbit, only this time, reading the Annotated version. It was so interesting to read the side notes about John Ronald Reuel Tolkien; where he got ideas, his education, letters to friends, poetry.  The man was a genius, it is just that simple.
Roy recently enjoyed:
and

Baseball or history and he is one happy guy. 
On a serious note -
I have learned so much from:
and

Full-time Grandparenting in Virginia

Becky opted to attend a conference for her job in Honolulu during October which was not exactly a tough decision!  Well, Gerald, being a smart guy, decided to tag along and I got a phone call: "Mom......" Which led to a second call from Houston to Darwin "Guess what we are doing for your next break?" Didn't take too much arm twisting for either of us.

So we held down the Fowkes fort in their new house for a week:
walking the kids to school, pre-school, swim lessons, violin practice, packing lunches, making dinner, homework, playing games after said dinner, yard work, laundry, (lots of laundry), and my favorite - reading aloud at bedtime.
Roy and I managed to squeeze in watching some baseball playoffs - go Giants!  We also bought a squirrel proof bird feeder for their deck and Birds of Virginia as Roy hopes to recruit bird watching companions.
With all this normal, we needed an adventure so we skipped the kids out of school on Friday and drove 3 hours northwest to ........

HERE!  We had a very fun afternoon learning all about chocolate.   Ask me anything. 













Maybe the best part was making our own chocolate bars.  Milk or dark chocolate?  Nuts?  Sprinkles on top?

Thank you Milton and Catherine Hershey. 
After a swim in the motel pool and pizza for dinner, bedtime for all.  Grandparenting is exhausting; in a good way. 
The next day found us in nearby Valley Forge. Happy History buffs :)

George Washington Chapel

Guess who? 

Miss Ellie and General Scout

 Back home in Virginia we took a walk in a nearby Park with binoculars and Grandpa's new bird watching enthusiasts.

Do we need to tell ya, we had a GREAT time? Even if I came home sick.
The kids were very well behaved and hardly missed Mom and Dad.  Ok, maybe a little.  At times.
As Paul Harvey used to say, "and the rest of the story" about the bird feeder: the birds finally found it and Scout has started a "birds sighted" list.  Grandpa is thrilled. The family has reported what great fun it is watching the squirrels trying to break into the food.