Thanksgiving with David's Family

Both sets of our families literally live five minutes from one another, which make the holidays super easy and convenient. Last weekend, we celebrated Thanksgiving with David's family. David has a huge immediate family- well, to me it is huge. He is the baby of six and several of his siblings have four, five, and even six children a piece. I am an aunt to many, many people (most of whom are older than I am!) David's mother was 40 when he was born and there is a wonderful sense of "togetherness" and "family" at his mother's house. Harbor has dozens of cousins to play with and that makes my heart so happy for him.

For Thanksgiving, I was asked by one of David's sisters to take family pictures, so these are all pictures I snapped of different families during the day.

Harbor enjoyed playing Grandma McCash's piano, swinging outside in the "horse" swing, and jumping on the "jump-jump"- Harbor speak for trampoline. After we ate, we ventured back out to the Fayetteville Square to see the lights. It was a very relaxed night, full of life and laughter. I'm so blessed to have married and gained an instant family!

David cooked and carved the turkey for my family Thanksgiving and for his family Thanksgiving, as well. He has been cooking the turkey for my side of the family since we married, almost 10 years ago. Have we really been married almost a decade? That is a lot of turkey! Ha!

This is David with his mother and five brothers and sisters. David's dad passed away soon after we married. He is sorely missed by this big and growing family. I think all the boys look really similar.

One of my nephew's girlfriends was kind enough to snap a picture of us! Thanks,Whitney!  : )

Christmas Break starts in three weeks! And to top it off, I received my first Christmas card in the mail today!  : ) Have a happy week!

Christmas Village

The day after Thanksgiving, my family visited the largest indoor miniature Christmas village in the state. It is located in Fayetteville and is free to the public- a very neat place to visit! A local church has it on display and the man who assembled it is a member there.  Harbor was in love with the working trains, the running water feature, and the twinkling lights of the city. Different businesses or individuals can "sponsor" parts of the village to help raise money for charity, and my aunt, uncle, and cousin sponsored a house- in return their names are outside the house, a girl and a dog are in the window (supposed to be Rachel with Tilly), and a motorcycle is parked out front. It was neat to see how so many houses were customized to represent certain families.

After we left the village, we headed onto the Fayetteville Square for dinner at Damgoode Pies and on to see the Christmas lights. It was a very cold night, but we managed to stay warm and enjoy the Christmas Spirit- nothing says Christmas like lights and music! Harbor rode the little pony and we all enjoyed seeing how much fun he was having.

Today, we celebrated Thanksgiving with David's family and took, yet again, another trip to the square to see the lights. This time we ate kettle corn! I did some family pictures outside of David's mom's house since David comes from such a big brood (he is the youngest of six kids and many of his siblings have four, five, and six kids also.) Tomorrow, I am taking pictures for a good friend and plan to keep working on those Christmas cards. Monday is back to school and teaching for me- but only for three weeks!  : )

Happy Weekend!