Thanksgiving 2014

On Thursday, October 9th, Natalie arrived home from university to spend Thanksgiving Weekend in Canada with us.  

We drove to my husband's family cottage on a lake north of Montreal, Quebec.

Where we were greeted by a full moon!

In the morning, we got up and lit a fire in the wood stove.

Then went for a walk in the woods.

It was cold outside, but cosy in the living room of the cottage.

The autumn colours were beautiful.

And we watched the bluejays at the feeder outside the window.

We paddled over to the Thomson family cottage across the lake (Jim and I met at the lake and these are our grandparents' places!).  My sister Karen was staying at the Thomsons' and we all hoped our Mom, Grandma, would be well enough to come up for a Thanksgiving visit and dinner.

Grandma wasn't feeling well, so she couldn't come that day.  But we skyped and had a lovely chat.  She arrived the next day, but we had to return to Ottawa, so we missed our visit with her.  I'm glad she got to spend the day up north with Karen and her family.

We had our turkey with all the trimmings.

And the next morning, with mist was on the lake, we packed the car to head home to Ottawa and Nicholas.

We had a picnic at Nick's place and a really wonderful visit.  Then we dropped Natalie off at the airport, kissing her goodbye till her next visit home at Christmas.

Tonight, we had another Thanksgiving dinner at home with Nicholas and his helper/friend Tom.  Nick and I made a rum cake for dessert - Nick's favourite! 

We skyped Grandma again and told her about the cake.  "Forget the cake and just pass the rum!" she said!

Tonight, I said grace at the table.  "Thank you, Lord, for the food on our table.  But thank you most of all for the love in our family.  Thank you for the love today and every day."  We weren't together all at once this Thanksgiving, but we came together in the ways that we could.  And we felt very grateful all the same.