This Florida Girl can build a fire!

I had a great thanksgiving weekend! Amy Ruth has been here since Tuesday. We spent Tuesday afternoon showing her the beautiful sights of San Fransisco. We ate at our absolute favorite chinese restaraunt, the House of Nan King. It's been so fun to have Amy Ruth around again, just like old times in Saint Louis. We have had some great conversations and good times with the three of us together and all of us in relatively healthy places lives, ocmpared to our time together last year where we were all really struggling with school and life. So nice to all be healthy and enjoying life, together.

Thanksgiving was a joyous day. Amy Ruth and I got up for a Thanksgiving jog, and then we hit the kitchen hard making the 22 lb. turkey, stuffing, sweet potato rolls, custard pie, and many other goodies. Around 2 pm, Brooke and her family arrived for the festivities. The preparations lasted probably another 2 hours or so, despite my goal to be completely done and relaxing by 1:30 pm. Ha! At least I am conquering my idealisms in the kitchen early on in life. Once we got all the food on the table and all ten people seated around our huge table (one of God's blessings this year), we said grace and I was able to reflect on all of God's goodness in my life. Looking around the table, I was reminded of God's gift of friendship to me. I had friends from college, Saint Louis, and now California all seated around me and representing the different stages of my life where God has provided community for me. I am so thankful for my own family who, being absent from my table was something I felt throughout the day. But my friends are absolutely who I want to be with if family can't be there. I did get to talk with almost everybody except Dad. (Happy belated Thanksgiving, Dad!). After eating, Brooke's siblings and Amy Ruth, and I all crashed on my bed for a quick nap. Six of us in all were squeezed together like little children, except we are all anything but little children. It was such a comforting feeling to relax and enjoy friends' company. After the nap, we cleaned and watched the Charlie Brown Thanksgiving special.

On Saturday night we had a wonderful time with the youth group. We had the youth group over to help us decorate our Christmas tree, drink cider and eat holiday pastries, and watch the Charlie Brown Christmas movie. They each brought a picture of themselves and put it in an ornament to put on our tree. Now we have our tree already up and it is full of the faces of new friends in our lives who we know will continue to become a big part of our lives as the years go by.
So why did I title this entry "this florida girl can build a fire"? Well, can you believe I built my first fire tonight? It was very thrilling to watch it take off and develop into a roaring fire. What can I say...I have never built a fire before so this was
really exciting for me. I hope you are all well,
I have gotten many emails from you guys...please know I have gotten them all and really appreciate knowing you guys are able to read about what is going on. I hope to email you all back sometime this week. Also, I changed the settings on my blog so anybody can comment, so you no longer need an account with blogger to comment. Just click on "comments" and type away!