Thanksgiving2009

Last night we had the privilege of participating in an event with our church where we served Thanksgiving dinner to the homeless people of Salem. We did this last year, too, and I have to say that it truly is a great experience to serve these folks a good, hot meal and see how much they appreciate it. I plan on our family participating in this event, and hopefully others like it, many times in the years to come.

This morning, we all got up WAYYYY early (Tom at 4:30 am, so he could go pick his Mom up from Dallas) and the rest of us at 5 am, so that we could all get ready to head to the train station for our train ride up to Seattle so that we could share Thanksgiving dinner with Tom's brother's family. We haven't ridden the train in several years, but every time we do, we always remember how much we like it. There is so much more room on the train than on a plane and it's much more relaxing than going in a car and having to worry about traffic and bathroom breaks. There is even a dining car where you can go get a snack if you are hungry! It takes longer by train than by car, because of all the stops the train makes along the way, but that's ok. The kids played games on their lap tops, Tom did some Sodoku puzzles and I read some and worked on my art journal some. Time went by fairly quickly and before we knew it we were in Seattle. Tom's Mom got off at the Tukwila stop where Norm picked her up, since she is staying with them rather than with us at our motel, and that stop is closer to Norm and Elaine's home. We caught a cab from the train station to our motel, the Inn at Queen Anne, and hung out there for a couple of hours since Thanksgiving dinner wasn't being served up until around 4 pm. Norm came and picked us up around 2:30 and Tom and the kids hung out with the cousins while I helped Elaine out in the kitchen. This woman is an amazing cook and hostess. There were like, 12 pies, 2 kinds of stuffing, a beautiful turkey, mashed potatoes, baked yams, green beans, cooked purple cabbage, mushroom gravy and homemade rolls. There were not only our family and their family there, but also Mika's Finnish teacher and her family, who have only been in the U.S. since August, a friend of the family's from their church and Anja's boyfriend (or recent ex-boyfriend....I'm not sure!) We ate ourselves full, then played a fun game with Scrabble tiles called "Take Two", before realizing that we were all VERY tired and about ready to fall over asleep, so one of the other guests gave us a ride back to our quaint hotel room (more about that later) so that we could rest up for tomorrow (lots of shopping opportunities available in downtown Seattle on Black Friday!!)