Ten Things on Thanksgiving Week

I'm a day late for Ten Things Tuesday, but here, in no particular order, are ten things going on in my world this Thanksgiving week:

1. Tuesday was my last day at the school where I teach until next Monday. I am excited about and grateful for a five-day Thanksgiving weekend!  

2.  If you have been reading my blog for any length of time, you know that I love sunrises.  This was the sunrise Tuesday morning as I pulled into the school parking lot.  I'm grateful that at my new school, I still get amazing mountain views including beautiful sunrises. 

3. I'm grateful that the Christmas decorations are up!  This year, I only put up one small tree, my nativity collection, and a few snowmen, but the living room looks nice and festive.  I love having the Christmas decorations up before Thanksgiving! To me, having the house decorated for Christmas, adds to, and doesn't detract, from Thanksgiving. 

4. Our Thanksgiving will be a simple one at home - just Charly, Josh, and I.  Our Utah daughter and her family went to Disneyland over the Thanksgiving break. We aren't cooking a whole big turkey, but instead bought a Boar's Head turkey breast. We'll also have the traditional stuffing, mashed potatoes and gravy, sweet potatoes, green beans and salad.  We will, of course, top it all off with Charly's pumpkin pies. We plan to go to our friend's home in the evening for Thanksgiving dessert.  I'm grateful that our Thanksgiving plans are low-key and relaxing.  I am even planning some naps!

5. Charly baked pumpkin pies for Thanksgiving.  His pumpkin pies are absolutely delicious - the best I have ever tasted!  He hasn't baked them for a few years, but after I coaxed him a little, he got busy and baked them.   I'm grateful that these wonderful pies will be part of our Thanksgiving. 

6. Our little condo passed it's home inspection, and things continue to move forward with the sale.  Of course, the home inspector always has to find something that isn't perfect and needs some kind of repair, but overall, the inspection found that not much is wrong with the place, and for that we are grateful.

7. Since things are moving along well with the sale of our condo, we went ahead and put in an offer on this place, which (hopefully) will be our second retirement home in Utah County.  Nothing is a "done deal" at this point, but I am hopeful and excited.  

8.  We were delayed on the way home from Utah County Tuesday night by a multi-car accident on the freeway. I prayed for the people involved in the accident as we passed by.  It looked like there weren't any critical injuries or deaths (and I didn't hear of any later on the news), so I'm grateful for that, and I grateful that we got home safely in heavy traffic.

9.  I get up most every weekday morning at 5 a.m., but Wednesday, with no school, I slept in past 7:30 a.m..  I'm grateful for extra rest during my long Thanksgiving weekend. 

10.  Although I didn't want to spend Wednesday shopping, I  ended up going to several stores to get some things for Thanksgiving dinner.  I also got some Christmas shopping done, and I ordered some gifts.  I love Amazon at this time of year! Overall, it was a busy day, and I'm exhausted, but I'm grateful to have had a good and productive day. 

That's all for now.  

Have a very Happy Thanksgiving!!

🦃Deb🦃

Thanksgiving Weekend in St. George

If you read my last post, you know that we went to St. George for the Thanksgiving weekend.  My last post was about our Thanksgiving Day, and here is how our Black Friday went down. 

On Friday, we were up early because we needed to go to the country office in St. George to do some paperwork for the house we purchased last summer.  Unfortunately, the country offices were closed for a long Thanksgiving weekend.  Even though we couldn't get our business done, we took a minute to pose with the George Washington and Abraham Lincoln statues in front of the office building. 

Both Abe and Charly had books with them - two book-loving guys. 

After not being able to get our business done at the county offices, we decided to head over to the local mall, which is called the Red Cliffs Mall.

Our main purpose in going to the mall was to visit the Giving Machines. The Giving Machines are actual vending machines that allow you to buy something for someone in need.  Cards in the machines have pictures of different items and what it costs to provide that item to a needy individual.  You select and pay for the item on the card, and 100% of the proceeds go to purchase that item for the person in need.  I bought a chicken, which will probably go to a needy family in a rural area or in another country. Charly purchased a new pillow for a needy child.  We love helping others with the Giving Machines, which is sponsored by the church we belong to and are located in different cities all over the world.  These machines raise millions of dollars for the poor and needy in many different countries. 

After doing a little Black Friday shopping at the mall, we headed over to Snow Canyon State Park to do some hiking.  We hiked on two trails, Jenny's Canyon which leads up to a slot canyon and is Charly's all-time favorite trail, and a section of the Whip Tail Trail that we had not hiked before.  Here are some pictures of our afternoon in beautiful Snow Canyon which is, incidentally, literally ten minutes away from the house we purchased to move into when I retire. 

We had a great afternoon at Snow Canyon State Park. We weren't alone there because it is a popular destination for hikers and bikers, but we enjoyed being out and hiking amongst the gorgeous red cliffs and canyons.

Friday night, we went to see another movie - Red One - a fun action-packed Christmas movie about Santa getting kidnapped.  I was surprised, but I really enjoyed it!  We have not been to a movie for several months, so it was fun to go to two in one weekend.  Charly loves movies so two movies in one weekend was a special treat for him! 

We left to come home Saturday morning and had a safe and smooth drive. It is always good to take a few days off and have a fun getaway, but it is also good to come back home - wherever home is!

Thanks for stopping by to share my Thanksgiving weekend in St. George.  Have a good week and a very happy December!

Until next time,

😊Deb💖

"If you want to be happy,

have zero expectations of others,

take 100% responsibility for your life,

and be grateful for what you have."

~ anon.

Thanksgiving Blessings

We decided to go to St. George for Thanksgiving this year.  We left the day before Thanksgiving and stopped at our daughter's home to give  some advent calendars and a little light-up nativity to each grandchild.  It is always so fun to see our grandchildren. 

This is our ten-year-old granddaughter with her little nativity.  We though the grands would enjoy each having a little light up nativity in their rooms.  

This is what one of the nativities looked like closeup. There were different sizes and styles and we brought some of each so each grandchild got their choice.  I found them at a local Christian bookstore, and yes, I got one for myself too!

The six-year-old was excited to show us that she just lost her first tooth.  

Before we left to get on our way to St. George, we took a picture of the grandchildren by their Christmas tree.  They had cousins from their dad's side of the family coming for Thanksgiving so they were pretty excited about that.  

We made reservations several weeks ago to have our Thanksgiving dinner in St. George at Black Bear Diner.  We had never been to Black Bear Diner, but heard (through a St. George Facebook group) that they had an excellent Thanksgiving dinner.  We were not disappointed. 

Our dinner started with soup or salad.  I love a good green salad, and Charly said the soup was excellent too. 

I asked our server to take our picture.  She was a good server and made our Thanksgiving at Black Bear Diner very special. 

We had turkey and all the fixings and it was all excellent.  (We also had sweet potatoes with marshmallows in a separate bowl on the side that isn't shown in the picture - it was so good!).  The food all tasted homecooked and everything was delicious! 

Of course, we topped it all off with some pumpkin pie, which was also very good. 

After dinner, we drove out to the area where we bought the house that we plan to move to when I retire.  I will never tire of the beautiful view we have of what is known simply as "Red Mountain."

I stopped at another place to take some pictures of St. George which is set in a beautiful area between red cliffs and lava rock bluffs.  It is truly a scenic area.

Thanksgiving evening, we went to see the movie Wicked.

We hadn't been to a movie for several months, so this was a fun way to end our Thanksgiving. Wicked is an excellent movie - the music and dancing were amazing and we both enjoyed seeing this acclaimed musical.  I look forward to seeing it in a live performance someday.

I am grateful that we had such a nice Thanksgiving Day.  Even though "Turkey Day' was over, our fun in St. George wasn't.  I will post again soon about the rest of our Thanksgiving weekend getaway. 

Until next time,

😊Deb💖

"We should certainly count our blessings,

but we should also make our blessings count."

~Neal A. Maxwell

A Good Weekend

It's been a good weekend here.  Here are some of the highlights. 

Friday night after dinner, I took a small gift to a friend who was having a birthday.  She asked me in and we had a little visit which was nice. We chatted, then I came back home and did some reading and relaxed.

Saturday morning, we were up early. Our first stop was to fill up with gas.  I was surprised that gas prices have come down and we paid less than $3 per gallon. 

After filling the car, we went to the mall to walk before the stores opened.  I had Charly stop and pose by this sign that is by Santa's picture area.  We had a nice walk of almost two miles around the mall. 

After walking at the mall, we headed down to Provo in Utah County - one of our favorite places to go on the weekend!

We went to our favorite used bookstore in Provo - a place called Pioneer Book. We had a credit that was expiring at the end of November that we wanted to use. We had fun browsing in the shelves and then Charly and I each got a book. 

After the bookstore, we went to the kolache place next door and got lunch.  I had a "Vegetarian Mexican Omelet" kolache that had egg, cheese, cilantro and avocado. It was delicious!

Of course, we love to go to our favorite thrift store in Provo whenever we are there.  On Saturday, I found a Willow Tree figurine I didn't have and I brought her home with me for only $7! That's a great deal. She is the little girl with the golden heart and is now in the display cabinet in my living room.

When we got back home, I decided to take some items I have been paring down to donate at a local thrift store.  I took two boxes and a bag of clothing, shoes and other stuff we don't need any more. 

Of course we had to browse in the thrift store, and I was so pleased to find these two Nancy Drew books that I need for my growing collection of these books. 

Sunday morning was wet and cloudy.  We had a little snow on the ground. At church, we had a special musical number by the children in our congregation and some wonderful messages on gratitude. 

Sunday after church, I put the finishing touches on the Christmas decoration in our living. 

Our outside decorations are super simple this year.  I decided not to put up any outside lights this year, but I put some new touches on a wreath I have had for a while and hung it on the door.  It looks good there. 

We did see some blue skies on Sunday afternoon, but there were still a lot of clouds and it was cold and breezy.

For Sunday dinner, we had beef cubes and mushrooms slow cooked in the crock pot in beef gravy and served over mashed potatoes. This is one of my favorite dinners. Charly likes rice better than potatoes so he had his over rice.  For our vegetable, we had roasted carrots with a brown sugar glaze sauce. It was a delicious meal that we both enjoyed.

I also baked some berry muffins to go with dinner. I put a little raspberry jam in the batter and it was so good. 

I have been working on my puzzle all weekend and I plan to work on it a little more tonight after posting this. While I work on the puzzle, I will listen to the audiobook, Choosing Glory by Lili De Hoyas Anderson I will also do some reading in a physical book before bed.  

Weekend Gratitude:

• Having a nice day in Utah County with Charly.
• Finding some fun "treasures" at thrift stores.
• Donating some things I no longer use.
• Getting the Christmas decorations up.
• Receiving a bike rack for our car free of charge from a friend.
• Hearing wonderful messages and music at church. 
• Having good conversations on the phone with Josh.
• Planning for a nice Thanksgiving.

That's all for now. Thanks for stopping by, and have a wonderful Thanksgiving! 

Until next time,

🦃Deb🦃