Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving this year was kind of a bust for our family. We spent the day home sick while everyone else was eating turkey and pie we were home trying to keep our lunch down.

The weekend before Thanksgiving Luke came down with a stomach bug. He couldn't keep much of anything down for 24 hours. The next morning he was mostly fine. He kept his food down however his appetite wasn't there. We thought we were in the clear when nobody else got sick for the next few days. Our luck ran out on Wednesday. I get a call at work from Mom that she has come down with a stomach bug that sounded eerily familiar to Luke's.  Mom like Luke woke up the next day feeling better and kept her food down. However, her appetite had not returned and is still missing.

Even Wednesday we knew we shouldn't be going out on Thanksgiving but we held out a bit of hope for some miraculous recovery that would allow us to make the trip. Alyce's upset stomach and a fever of 103 erased any doubt where we were going to be spending Turkey Day. Alyce luckily only got sick once and spent most of the day either taking naps or laying on the couch watching TV.

I took the opportunity to do some work on my wall. I received more than one awkward look from the neighbors as I was loading shovelfuls of rock into a wheelbarrow as they were off to Thanksgiving dinner. After explaining to them our situation you could see the understanding in their eyes. Each and every person I talked to offered to bring food back from their dinners. It was very neighborly of them and embodied the Thanksgiving spirit.

The aftermath of this round of influenza is still felt. Just yesterday Luke's appetite came back a full 7 days after the first onset of symptoms. Alyce never really seemed to lose her appetite however the quantity of consumption has gone down. Mom has yet to regain her appetite and is limiting what she eats. Not because she couldn't keep it down but because it isn't agreeing with her. I'm hoping that this will pass me by. If I am to get sick I can be thankful that I was healthy while everyone else was sick so I could take care of them.

Making Cookies

Today Alyce helped Mom and Grams make Christmas Cookies. Mom sent me a picture of Alyce helping out and I wanted to share it with everyone.


Thanksgiving was very busy this year. The family had two meals to attend. The night before we traveled out to Grandma's house to help get the house ready. We didn't do much at night, but us being there in the morning made sure that we hit the ground running on Thanksgiving. Seeing my side of the family was great. My brother and his family were there along with all of my cousins who had kids right around the same time Alyce was born. It was very neat this year because all of the babies are now toddlers and they are beginning to interact with each other. You can definitely see the impact of the next generation. There was an entire table crammed with parents trying to get their children to eat something. The afternoon at Grandma's culminated with all of the kids and parents going down the hill to play on some playground equipment at the school.

After dinner and the playground at Grandma's we had to load Alyce in the car and get ourselves to Gram's and Grandpa's house. By this point it was past Alyce's nap time and we were hoping that she would fall asleep in the car. Our prayers were only partially answered because she fell asleep the last 10 minutes of the drive. Luckily dinner was running late and I could stay out in the car with Alyce and we both took a little cat nap.

Once both dinners were over we went back home, got Alyce into bed, and took a little break for ourselves. Alyce did great. We couldn't have asked her to be any more well behaved. Throw on little to no nap and it made her positive attitude even more impressive.