Hope you had a wonderful Thanksgiving

I had a great time visiting family in Tennessee. My mom's family is pretty large - that is what happens when you are the middle of 16. So we had approximately 50 - 55 people participate this Thanksgiving. Even though it is Thanksgiving it is treated more like Christmas since everyone gets together for Thanksgiving. Every year the younger ones exchange presents. Here they are patiently waiting...Lance our youngest is decked out in his John Deere attire and waiting eagerly....

Getting a little impatient...you can see it in their eyes "Can we get this show on the road???"

Now that they have their gifts they begin to open their presents....as you can tell my little guy loves John Deere anything...and everyone knows it....makes him very easy to buy for.

After the younger kids finished up, we let the older kids play the GAME. I am not sure what the name of this game is called but it goes like this. You pull a number the higher your number the better (I had 20 - YEAH!!!) and you can either open your gift or take the gift of someone else's that you like. This year for the first time we had the kids between 10 and 16 play the game. I do not recommend anyone under the age of 14 playing this game. We had one who had a melt down and then we had a scuffle break out between the girls...girls??? WHAT IS UP WITH THAT??? I remember when I was a little girl we were expected to act like ladies....boy have things changed.

The boys were more polite than the girls. Here is John our middle son, patiently waiting and looking a little bored.

As you can tell my mom's family is camera crazy - it must be part of their gene pool...everyone in the photo are one of the sister's - they always have a camera. My mom is the third one from the left - yes they all resemble one another as well.

Once the older kids finished it was the adults turn. This is always a fun game and I am amazed at how adults can become kids again. My cousin would not be happy with this photo, but the game can really get to you when you are in the middle of playing it. Here is my cousin who is about 6' 2" and is a farmer who donned an apron, potholders and walked around with the bowl that we began to throw money into. He ended up collecting $50 bucks and donating it to the my aunts church that we use for the get together.

It is really hard to describe how much fun it is to play and go after gifts just for the fun of it. Or maybe it is just everyone getting together after not seeing each other for such a long time.

A couple of years ago, which was the last time I went my cousin passed away the Friday after Thanksgiving. He was 21 and had suffered from cerebal palsy from birth. I was not able to go the funeral I just couldn't do it. We did go to the cemetary this trip and I have included below the poem my aunt (his mother) wrote on his plaque the cemetary does not allow tombstones. I took a photo and included below along with a picture of Lance cleaning off my uncles plaque.

On our excursions to the Antique Store we ran into Santa. Lance didn't know what to think of Santa just walking the streets of Kingsport, Tennessee. However, he did take full advantage of having a private session with Santa.