Weekend FUN

This has been a weekend of blessings. Quite fitting since it is the prelude to Thanksgiving week! On Friday, we got out of school early so our high school team and a TON of fans could go to Mobile for the 3rd round of the state playoffs. We couldn't go because of Chad's work schedule but we had our radio sitting on ready at kickoff time! My daddy and smom came to eat dinner with us. I cooked a huge dinner since I was off early including one of my daddy's favorite, chocolate pie. It was yummy and we had so much fun sitting around together. We WON and beat a team we were not picked to beat. The game was AWESOME and I was sad to not be there. There was standing room only on our side and the radio announcer said our fans never sat down. Way to GO! I forgot to mention that when the team buses left town, we lined the streets with our students, as did the other schools, and the buses drove through each campus and we cheered our hearts out for them. It was a memorable event and I loved it. I just love living in a small town!

We had such a great Saturday. Chad was off and on Thursday night, we decided to see if my daddy and smom could keep the kids for us. They were so excited we asked them. We rarely ask them because they don't live here. That is really no excuse because they adore having them and the kids love going. Claudia used to be scared to go because she knew she'd have to stay inside all day while everyone else played outside because she was so scared of the dogs. Thanks to the Lord and a blessing we call Spencer, she no longer has that fear and can get out and romp in the country with the rest of the cousins. They were both so happy to be going but Cooper was very adamant to ask a million times if he was going to have to spend the night. Chad and I would have LOVED to have done an overnight trip but Cooper just isn't emotionally up for that since he had to do a surprise spend the night when my daddy had his heart attack right after open heart surgery and we had to live late at night for the hospital. Cooper is still terrified of having to spend the night anywhere but with us since then.

We got up early (even the 3 sleepy heads who live here) and headed out. We just took the kids in their P.J.'s and let them get dressed later. On our way, we had to go through the town where I used to live before college and where my sister works so I ran into the pharmacy to see her for just a minute. She was so happy we stopped and I got to meet all of her work family that she loves so much. We were in Birmingham before the stores opened and we made good use of every second of our day. We hit all our favorite places and made sure to have a good chat with Santa while we were there. We worked on our Christmas list and really got a lot done. I finally got to spend a Bath & Body gift card that a sweet friend and her son who comes to KKidz had given me. I'm very excited about that because it is hard to spend money on things like that when there is always something we'd rather the kids have. We had lunch at one of our favorite places, The Fish Market. We got introduced to that place when Chad's daddy was in the Neuro ICU at UAB for so long in 1998 and even though those are bad memories, we still love the food so we like to go there when we can. I think we finally got to daddy's around 7:30 or so and we were so happy to see Claudia and Cooper. They had played all day and were exhausted. We surprised them with the DVD Home Alone. They love to watch that every time it comes on tv. We had to watch it when we got home...well, most of it before we all fell asleep.

This morning we had a great service in church. Everything was focused on giving thanks for all God has done for us and has provided for us. His provisions and blessings in our lives are amazing to me. We are so undeserving of His mercy, His grace, His blood, & His forgiveness! I am very excited about our night service. We have a Thanksgiving Agope Love Feast the Sunday night before Thanksgiving and this year we are getting to do something very special...tonight we will have our feast in our very own, brand new, Family Life Center! It has been a desire and prayer for a long time that God would provide this for us and He has! We had hoped to have the feast there last year but it has taken a whole year to get us there. It has been worth the wait. I have purposely stayed out of it since before floors went in, paint went up, etc. because I want to be surprised! I cannot wait to get in the kitchen and get my goodies cooked so we can head out to enjoy God's bounty that He has given us. Here is a picture from earlier in the fall of two turkeys I am especially thankful for!

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