My Thanksgiving Post

I'm Thankful for so much.  My family, my health, the health of my family - it goes in circles and I love it all. 

We made our annual trip to the gigantic cornucopia. 

 On Thanksgiving itself, we went to the beach.  The day before I had to run errands and walked as slowly as I could to and from the car to soak in the amazing sunshine and beautiful weather while making plans to go to the beach in the morning. 
And that we did:)  I packed a loaf of bread, PB & honey, and waters.  Steven thought we'd go to McDonalds or something for fun for the kids, but I still took the loaf of bread in case. 

They played on the playground a little then went on the beach sidewalk for a stroll. 

 In case you're wondering, Steven won and we went to the left:)

 Dylan's photography skills when we saw the sand sculptures. 

 Yes I was laughing from setting up the camera and running back to a sweet husband who puts up with me and my good moods:)

 and Isaac's Photography skills. 

 The sand artists came from all over.  This one is called "one night sand" by somebody from Park City Ut who depicted "the fall." 

 The boys ran towards the water but got distracted by the big hole. 

 Where they wrestled.

 The loaf of bread came in handy when Isaac chose a sandwich over chicken nuggets AND especially when Steven came back informing us that McDonalds celebrates family Thanksgiving time just as much as we do:)  We all enjoyed a peanutbuttery beach picnic.

 If you look beyond my laughing friend-making climbers, you'll see a beach Turkey Bowl game going on.  It only lasted an hour, but looked like fun!  Steven and his friends played the weekend before and it lasted 3 sun burning hot dirty hours! 

 I'm thankful for hot beach days on Thanksgiving:) 

  After nap time, we went to my mom's with some friends and Steven's family minus his cousin and brother and their families.  We missed them. 

 Jonathan made the annual penguin hors d'oeuvres.  Isaac probably ate half of the deviled eggs himself. 

 The kid table:

 The adult table: (note - Steven and I weren't sitting at either.  We kind of fit right in the middle somewhere but mostly are up grabbing more water, napkins in a hurry, fortunate bathroom breaks, etc. 

 The kids played and picked on the lone uncle there (besides Steven and Brent but for some reason they don't count.) 

 They got out Twister, and Jonathan took a welcome break with his important job of spinning. 

The only unfortunate part of the day was when Alex and her sisters (friends from church) asked me what I could do on the trampoline.  Instead of doing what a normal adult would do and just verbally reminiscing and asking HER what SHE could do, I showed her my front flip in the process of warming up for the back flip.  Oops.  Mid air - once I flipped my head forward - I heard and felt a pop in the right side of my neck.  It hurt.  But it scared me more.  I have an issue with my neck around C7 and have been treatment planned for surgery by multiple doctors.  I was hoping that I magically popped something back into place - and that the pop was a good thing.  The next couple of days' pain-in-the-neck proved otherwise.  So today at the resulting MRI, the tech gave me names of good neuro-spinal surgeons.  The good news is that I feel much better today!  I think I need some rest.  The bad news is that the imaging tech told me that I look younger than my age - it was meant to be a compliment, but how rude - the Neurosurgeon already made fun of me for thinking I was young enough to do trampoline flips.  I'm not liking being an old 30 year old today.  But again, I'm thankful for all of the other blessings even if I am rickety and old.