Thanksgiving.

"Everyone has to close their eyes and say thank you for three things. Ok, you're up!
-Kian
Our first Thanksgiving away from family.  Let me just take a moment to say how much I appreciate our fellow Oregonian orphans.  Without Jody pushing everyone, without Mel to cook the turkey, without Dave to fund the operation and host the event, it would have been a very lonesome holiday.  I cannot tell you how grateful I am to have such wonderful people.
About a month ago Jody and I started talking about thanksgiving, and came to the conclusion that he and Mel and I are the only ones that know how to cook.  Last week I stopped by his office and asked him what the plan was.  "Mel is going to do the turkey, since neither of us have done one before, I will do the ham, and you can do everything else.  But I will help you, of course." 
So by 11:00 Thursday morning we had successfully taken over Dave's house.  Annie had been there all morning cleaning and getting everything ready for us.  I do not understand how people manage to serve a hot thanksgiving meal.  I think we need to invest in alot of crock pots and turkey roasters before next year, because I think the only hot dishes were the ham and asparagus.  Although, in hindsight, I probably didn't need to make the mashed potatoes two hours before the turkey was done.  But as our first full blown meal, I would have to consider it a success.  Matt and Nicole and Chris showed up around 2 or 3, and everyone hung out in the kitchen and on the back deck, talking, laughing at Kian's antics, or getting attacked by the fart blaster while watching Planes.  Good, clean fun, as my husband would say.  When dinner was finally ready, and everyone gathered around the table, two questions were raised.  Who will bless the turkey, and who will carve it?  Well Dave was unanimously elected to carve the turkey (despite his protests that he has never carved a turkey before), but flatly refused to pray.  Honestly, we were a little surprised that everyone seemed to feel so strongly that someone ought to pray before eating thanksgiving dinner.  It's strange, to me, how some people observe religious acts on holidays, and feel just as strongly that they ought to be done at those times as they do that religion is not necessary at other times.  For any of my fellow OregonianTexans, I absolutely mean no offense.  You must understand that for me, it is a way of life, and while your way of thinking about religion and holidays is different than mine, I appreciate it so much, because thanksgiving without a prayer would be to me even more foreign.  I am glad that we had the opportunity to pray together, even if it means something different to you than it does me.
I had talked to Annie earlier about the question of who would pray, and had told her of my irrational fear of praying in front of people.  I hate it.  It scares me, it's awkward, I start shaking and often times break out, so I avoid it whenever possible.  At the table, everyone was laughing and joking about it, saying "Jesse should do it!" "Why won't you do it?" "It's your house!" but Dave kept asking who was going to do it, and the subject wasn't dropped, so finally I just went for it.
I still hate praying in front of people.  It still terrifies me, and I'm not super excited that I had to do it, but I'm glad I did, because it needed to be done, and it was getting awkward.
The next morning Jesse and Jody went out hunting and Jesse got his first pig!  All I've been hearing for two days now is "I shot it on the run!"  He is very proud of it, especially since it's the first pig to be shot by an oregonexan.  He also is not one to kill something and not eat it, and consequently my kitchen was turned into a processing plant for a day.  It smelled bad, but it is good to have meat in the freezer.  It takes alot for me to complain about free food.