Over the River and Through the Woods

Baking, basting, football, bloody mary's, napping...exactly what Thanksgiving should be with a few new traditions now in the mix.  My family joined us this year in La Crosse for a pretty relaxing holiday. I do wish more of the Scott family could have joined us.  I'm always thankful for family.  During the holidays, I experience the gift of now.  The people we get to keep in our lives with each passing year.  In the words of Jane Kenyon "But one day, I know, it will be otherwise." ("Otherwise")

But this year I think we did a good job of living it up on our holiday.

Tula starts the party off

Hugs from Grandma Kat

Dad and me--time for a family walk

An Iroquois Prayer for Thanksgiving

We return thanks to our mother, the earth, with sustains us. We return thanks to the rivers and streams, which supply us with water. We return thanks to all herbs, which furnish medicines for the cure of our diseases. We return thanks to the corn, and to her sisters, the beans and squash, which give us life. We return thanks to the bushes and trees, which provide us with fruit. We return thanks to the wind, which, moving the air, has banished diseases. We return thanks to the moon and the stars, which have given us their light when the sun was gone. We return thanks to our grandfather He-no, .., who has given to us his rain. We return thanks to the sun, that he has looked upon the earth with a beneficent eye. Lastly, we return thanks to the Great Spirit, in whom is embodied all goodness, and who directs all things for the good of his children.

Mike and I, right before he races back to throw in the turkey

i thank You God for most this amazing

day:for the leaping greenly spirits of trees

and a blue true dream of sky;and for everything

which is natural which is infinite which is yes

(i who have died am alive again today,

and this is the sun’s birthday;this is the birth

day of life and love and wings:and of the gay

great happening illimitably earth)

how should tasting touching hearing seeing

breathing any–lifted from the no

of all nothing–human merely being

doubt unimaginable You?

(now the ears of my ears awake and

now the eyes of my eyes are opened)

-e.e. cummings

Mom and Bobber

For each new morning with its light/ For rest and shelter of the night/ For health and food, for love and friends/ For everything Thy goodness sends

.~Ralph Waldo Emerson

O Lord that lends me life,
Lend me a heart replete with thankfulness.
~William Shakespeare

Tula and Grandpa Jim, home again.

Go Pack!

Thanksgiving dinners take eighteen hours to prepare.  They are consumed in twelve minutes.  Half-times take twelve minutes.  This is not coincidence.  

~Erma Bombeck

Thanks, Erin for making sure I'm in some of the pictures!

Oh, yeah...11-0 for Green Bay

Darla Dog is happy for the Packers

Like father, like son

A little pre-dinner poker

Over the river, and through the wood,
To grandfather's house we go;
The horse knows the way,
To carry the sleigh,
Through the white and drifted snow.

Over the river, and through the wood,
To grandfather's house away!
We would not stop
For doll or top,
For 't is Thanksgiving Day.

--from Lydia Maria Child's "The New-England Boy's Song About Thanksgiving Day"

If the only prayer you ever say in your entire life is thank you, it will be enough.--Meister Eckhart