Give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you. 1 Thessalonians 5:18
Welcome to Friday!
Enter his gates with thanksgiving, and his courts with praise!
Give thanks to him; bless His name! Psalm 100:5
I had an absolute blast this week. I was surely busy enough at work. I spent the work week trying to solve a customer issue, pushing on the contractor's for a project, and trying to help get my team ahead of schedule. At home I was excited and anxiously looking forward to hosting dinner at our house on Thanksgiving. It was pretty cool trying to coordinate who was going to bring what item, when we were going to start cooking, and what would be on the menu.
The girls rallied and deep cleaned the whole house on Tuesday. They really made things easier on us getting ready. Gabbi and Cassarra helped out with Ava and Emma and so did Sydney and Paige. We started cooking some of the desserts on Wednesday night. After getting the desserts started, I seasoned the turkey and then got up at 4:30am on Thursday morning to start cooking it. With help from my amazing chef and superwoman wife Trish, my sister Katina, my mother-in-law, sister-in-law, and the girls we had 3/4 of dinner ready by about 2pm.
Once everyone arrived we had a round of giving thanks that was extra special. I loved hearing others give thanks for God, for church, friends, family, life, sun, school, teachers, parents, prayers, support, encouragement, loved ones, and great food. We had prayer and then an awesome dinner. My cousin Lauren made some macaroni that was really good and I paired hers with my mother-in-laws to really get stuffed. After the round of macaroni I had a spoon full of nearly everything left on the serving line (pie, cheesecake, cake, rice pilaf, yellow rice, ham, turkey, stuffing, corn casserole, and chocolate delight). I missed out on a few items, but that was a matter of room not lack of desire.
Today I have spent most of the day napping and snacking. I slept in as late as I can remember in months. I didn't really budge until after 7:00am, when Ava and Emma dived into the bed. I still managed to stay in the bed until 8. After a morning workout and breakfast I did some cleaning and then more napping and snacking. We had a ton of leftovers in turkey, rice, macaroni and stuffing as we put things away last night. But, by lunch time today the ham had been significantly dented, the first bowl of macaroni disappeared, and I wiped out the last of the chocolate delight. The cake is down by half (Ava and Emma), and I think we have significantly reduced the stuffing.
To borrow the phrase: "I ate like a butcher hound" yesterday and I was still snacking today. I did hit the workout hard this morning, but I'll probably have to double up tomorrow to break even. Okay, I will probably have to triple up tomorrow!
I hope you had a great Thanksgiving. I pray that God has been good to you and that you have a lot of things to be thankful for. Whether still or storm I am thankful for you, and for
- Thanksgiving Dinner
- Food and Family
- Fun with family, friends and food
- Lauren's macaroni
- My mother-in-laws cooking
- Katina's fried chicken and stuffing
- Successfully cooking a juicy and tasty turkey (ask if you don't believe me!)
- Chocolate delight
- Trish's casserole
- Enough food for everyone to eat
- Enough food for Friday morning, noon and night leftovers
- Laughter - from the kids: "Oh no, we are going to be eating leftovers for days!"
- My beautiful wife Trish
- Trish's great hosting yesterday
- Trish's help setting everything up and making the day special
- A nice home to host dinner
- My nephews visiting all day on Thursday
- No major issues getting dinner ready
- Daddy joining us for Thanksgiving at our house
- My dad is amazing!
- Text messages from mom and her snapchats with the girls
- My mom is amazing too!
- Text messages from friends and family
- Coffee with Trish
- A bunch of great conversations at the house during dinner
- A great week at work
- An exciting job
- A difficult problem to solve at work and the perfect week to work on it
- A new set of customers for our products at work
- My whole entire family
- Laughter
- Health
- Joy
- A treadmill to work off the holiday meal
- Sleeping in late
- Date nights with Trish
- Family traditions and time to give thanks
- Being reminded to give thanks in all things
May God continue to bless and favor you. May God give you many blessings to be thankful for and the memory of the things he has done.
Welcome to Friday!
--- Cassius Rhue
"Behold, the fear of the Lord, that is wisdom; and to depart from evil is understanding.'" (Job 28:28)Love is irresistible, irrefutable, undeniable. Nothing rises to it. The dark side of our character has no weapon against it. It's our trump card. - Jim Daly
