Thanksgiving!!

I wasn’t expecting Thanksgiving to be anything like it was. My hope for a good Thanksgiving all started when I got a package brought with Kim from home from my Mom. We were going to have mashed potatoes, rolls, corn, and chicken because of that and that is plenty for me! Well it didn’t stop there! We rounded up our food last night and had a few brownie mixes, a cake mix to make cake cookies, chocolate chip muffins, cornbread muffins, yams, carrots, onions, eggplant (not quite American but they wanted to do it anyways), and an oreo pie that I brought from home. We were very excited about our American Thanksgiving feast!
Much to our surprise, Sierra’s Mom sent her a Thanksgiving package and we got it today! Just in the nick of time! There was more mashed potatoes, stuffing, and gravy. After lunch we started cooking certain things and didn’t finish until dinner time! Shantel was in her kitchen the entire afternoon while we were teaching and helping out when we got the chance.
Well, it was honestly such a treat to have all of that American, homemade food after three months. It was such a treat! We got three of our desks and took them into Shantel’s room and figured out how to get all 15 of us around them. It was so much fun! We loved it.
After we stuffed our faces with tons and tons of food compared to what we normally eat we all got a piece of paper and passed it around the table to have everyone write something you love most about them. We had a great time talking about a few remember when’s from the past three months and then ate our desserts which were piled high.
I really was so grateful this Thanksgiving. It made me realize how much I love all the amazing things I have at home. The simple things really do add up to make holidays what they are and so much fun.
But, we loved our Thanksgiving here and even loved the food because WE made it. You really do appreciate things more when you actually have to work to get the job done.
I just have to say how grateful I am for my family. I miss them so much being here for Thanksgiving and knowing exactly what they are doing back at home…but I will be home in three weeks so I’m not wishing I was there quite yet because I will be in no time! I wouldn’t exchange this experience for anything but I do love my family and can’t wait to see them!

I also have to mention our kids in class today. Gen and I figured that since we hadn’t spent our November budget that we’d buy them a Thanksgiving treat for them. We have been telling them that we celebrate Thanksgiving by eating lots of food so we didn’t want them to be disappointed. We got them the same cakes we had for our St. Patrick’s Day gold and hid them in Gen’s bag.
Gen brought her half of the kids into my classroom at the end of class and we showed them what we had for them. They were flabbergasted! Haha. They loved it! They had the biggest smiles on their faces and just kept saying thank you over and over again. We even got a few hugs from the really ecstatic ones as they were leaving.
I have to say the cutest part about it though was the fact that all 23 of them were sitting at the 12 desks together. They were all huddled together anticipating what they would get. I never knew it would be that easy to get all of our students sitting in 12 seats but apparently it’s possible! They were so darn adorable. Love them dearly.