My 25th Thanksgiving

Well, I would like to try and post some pictures of our Thanksgiving, but its saying that I've met my quota of free storage.  What??? I'm not paying, so anyone out there know what I'm supposed to do?

In the mean time, on with our Thanksgiving.  Yes, this is my 25th Thanksgiving, and yes, I am older than 25:)  My family came to the United States in 1987 on November 18th.  One of the first things we did was to celebrate Thanksgiving with our sponsors/friends.  I remember thinking the food was a bit odd (we didn't have cranberry sauce, stuffing or sweet potatoes in Romania, or at least not cooked like this). 

I am so grateful for God's provision and my parents' courage in moving us to a country free and full of opportunity.  We began life here as a family of four (I was 7, my sister turned 3 while we were in Rome on our way here) with four pieces of luggage.  God has blessed us abundantly since!  We added a brother, Mark, in 1993.  We've lived in several nice houses, attended faithful churches and my parents have put all three of us through college (Mark is at UNT right now and doing great!) And there were many other blessings along the way, friends, jobs, etc. that are too much to even list right now. Thank you Mom and Dad for trusting God with our lives and allowing Him to direct our paths and for teaching us to love and fear Him!

This Thanksgiving we had a neat service at church on the Wednesday before.  It was a time of singing, sharing testimonies of thankfulness and communion.  What a blessing to hear how people have been blessed throughout the year!  We are so thankful for our church and the amazing fellowship we have with brothers, sisters, mothers and fathers in Christ!

On Thanksgiving, I started the day by running the Turkey Trot 5K with our friends Jon and Kris.  And about 1300 other people from Grand Junction.  It was very cold at first, but by the time the race started it got better.  I was happy to run the whole time and even shave a few seconds off of what I had run earlier in the week.  Justin and the kids met me at the finish line to cheer me on:)

After the run, we went to our friends Jake and Nikki's house to eat.  (Here I would insert pictures, but....check FB, I'll put them there). Jake bought a HUGE turkey, even though it was only 4 adults and 2 small kids, anyway, and Nikki did an amazing job cooking it! We also had asparagus, mashed potatoes with gravy, mac and cheese, cranberry sauce, and stuffing stuffed portabello mushrooms and Nikki's homemade focaccia bread. Then we had an apricot and an apple/cranberry pie with ice cream. Yum!!!!!!!!!! We laid around and watched some football and a little TV and just relaxed the rest of the day.

It was a wonderful way to celebrate 25 years of living here and the many ways God has blessed us!

"Enter his gates with thanksgiving, and his courts with praise! Give thanks to him; bless his name!" Psalm 100:4