Thanksgiving Week - I'm stuffed!

Three Thanksgiving dinners in one week, plus the Friday before we had a lasagna dinner with some very special Nauvoo visitors.  So here's the story:

The Friday before Thanksgiving Ethan, Itashka, and her mom visited Carthage and had dinner with us.  It was so fun to have friends from home.  We've made so many new friends here, but there is something about old friends that is so deeply satisfying.  We share so many experiences, and friends,  and know each other so well. The groundwork of our relationship was laid long ago.  We know exactly what we can say - anything with these particularly friends - and what subjects to avoid - none, in this case.  Make new friends, but keep the old ... so the Girl Scout song goes.

On Monday we had our mission Thanksgiving dinner in the Pageant Hall.  Each zone was given food assignments. We brought green bean casserole, one of our favorites.  Then we were assigned to get our food from the table without green bean casserole.  But everything was delicious, and we knew it wasn't really Thanksgiving yet.

Carol singing

Piano concert

 Afterwards Sister Mensel, our newest FM missionary, led us in Christmas carols.  She was accompanied by an FM employee, Marcus, who is a very gifted pianist.  After the singing, Marcus performed for us, on a piano he'd assembled. Here's the story. 
Nauvoo somehow acquired a baby grand cabinet, sans piano. The cabinet was so beautiful that Marcus couldn't allow it to be trashed, so he installed an electronic keyboard.  Now this isn't any old electronic keyboard.  This one plays beautiful orchestral accompaniment to Marcus' playing. Normally this piano sits in the FM break room where we have our morning announcements and prayer meeting.  I have to separate those two things because the announcements are a raucous affair with lots of teasing and one liners.  Then follows a hymn, usually played by Marcus  on his special piano, a spiritual thought and prayer.  But recently the piano has been missing, replaced by a standard church upright.  Where's the piano?  It's been moved to the Visitor's Center for our Christmas walk on Saturday.  But for the mission dinner Marcus had to bring his own piano.  Since it's really a key board all of this moving around didn't disturb the piano at all. After Marcus pulled a large pickle jar partially filled with dollar bills out of the piano cabinet, and then pulled another one out, we enjoyed a wonderful concert.  When President Lusvardi came up to thank him for the concert, he helped himself to one of the dollars in the jar.  That's how it is here.  There is much joking and teasing. 

Mary Lee enjoying the concert.

 Our next dinner was immediately after work Wednesday, also in the Pageant hall, so Tuesday afternoon I made a what could have been a delicious green salad, with lettuce, spinach, craisins, and red and yellow peppers. I planned to add the pears just before we went to the dinner on Wednesday.  Less than an hour after I'd prepared this beautiful, and not inexpensive salad it was announced that all Romain lettuce was to be thrown out! What!  And anything that it had been in contact with.  :-( .  We live 30 minutes from the grocery, so there was nothing to do but check our pantry for a suitable substitute.  I had the ingredients for three bean salad, so I brought that instead to the FM dinner.  They served ham because we'd already had turkey.  There was no entertainment at this dinner, except for the many children the employees brought.  It sounded like a good old Ward dinner. 

Finally it really was Thanksgiving.
We had been invited to one of the grounds crew for dinner.  Late Wednesday night we got a phone call asking if we could have the dinner at our house because they'd found bed bugs on their bedspread.   We have a nice dining room and we were glad to have it in our home.  Because the site missionaries had to work, we also had to work, even though the employees were off.  Dee and I worked together, changing out filters in the historic sites.  I loved going into the sites before anyone else was there.  I could really look around and imagine the families who lived there doing their daily tasks. After we got home, we had a grandchildren's hangout.  Each grandchild had been given two or three letters of the alphabet. They were to tell something they were thankful for that started with that letter.  It was so fun, even the babies participated - through their moms.  We do miss them so much, but thankful for technology that allows us to talk and see each other.
After our gathering,  Dee got called in to repair some heaters.  I got ready for our company. After lunch we went for a quick bike ride.  Dee hasn't been able to ride because of the carpal tunnel syndrome, but this week he started riding again.  It was a fairly warm day, nice for a ride.

Dinner was wonderful - three grandmas know how to cook a Thanksgiving dinner.  And there was plenty of green bean casserole. Both couples work with us on grounds and FM, so we are well acquainted and a good time was had by all.

The big white triangle behind Elder Christensen is my shawl weaving loom. 

Friday I worked with Dee again.  Friday night after the grandchildren were in bed, we had a group visit with all of our children.  We used to do this more frequently.  Now that it's dark early we will try to do it more often.  Young missionaries aren't allowed to contact parents so often except through a weekly letter or email.  But Senior missionaries are parents and grandparents first, full time missionaries second.  So we are encouraged to keep in touch with our families.

Now you can see why I didn't do a mid-week post, as I usually do.  I've been too busy eating.  I barely had time to be thankful, so I'll save that for another post.