I hope everyone had a great long weekend.  We really enjoyed ours.  The weather was beautiful the entire weekend in Oregon — as long as you don’t mind the cold.  (Having lived in Maine and the North Country of New York Oregon cold is nothing!)  When I woke up Thursday and looked out the bedroom window, the view was so perfect I had to run and grab my camera.  I’m definitely grateful to wake up to this view each morning — you would never know that we are in the middle of a subdivision!

We went over to our friend Sara’s boyfriend’s house for the feast.  There ended up being 13 of us and  it was a nice size for a gathering.  Sara is an an AMAZING cook and she prepared almost everything.  Luckily we only brought a couple of veggie dishes (I can’t do without brussels sprouts now that I figured out how good they are roasted with bacon!) as Scott and Jack went with some friends to do the kids’ run at the Turkey Trot and Ali and I decided it was a jammie morning. 

It was so nice to celebrate the day with friends.  I love the idea of Thanksgiving — a day to be grateful for all that you have, to enjoy the company of others and the communion of sharing a meal that much love and thought has gone into.  Oh, and to stuff yourself until you can’t move!

The other Jack doing a bit of turkey hunting…

The lawn tractor was also a big hit.

Gracie need her pink bear, flash cards and sunhat on our long walk…

And Alice thought she would sunbathe in the 40 degree weather….

 The next day we headed down to Eugene for our next-door neighbor’s surprise 50th birthday.  Her husband went all out!  He really wanted to surprise her so he invited about 20 couples to spend the night at a nice hotel in Eugene, about an hour away.  They were obstensibly going down to have a turkey dinner at his sister’s house.  There was a “festival of trees” at the hotel we were all at (trees are decorated by individual and groups in the community, auctioned off and all proceeds go to the local hospice) and when the turkey took longer to cook than expected (that was the rouse), they decided to go check out the trees while waiting.  And there we all were to yell surprise.  Fortunately, no one spilled the beans and she really was surprised!  Her husband Ken organized an amazing dinner, a roast and a 192 photo slideshow of Carol’s life.  Ken spoke quite a bit about Carol’s basketball career – she had played in international leagues both in Italy and Japan and was on the gold winning 1984 Olympic team.  We knew little about Carol’s past accomplishments and it was so fasinating to hear more about her career.  Carol really seemed to enjoy her evening and so did all her guests.  We especially loved a free night away from the kids (their much beloved former babysitter came down to watch them and they went to a holiday parade so we weren’t missed).

If you happen to be an Oprah fan and are watching tomorrow and notice a red-headed producer in the first couple of segments, that’s my cousin Tara…  I for one will be tuning in tomorrow!