Thanksgiving Family Visit

November 18-19, 2022

We had very much looked forward to the family visit during Thanksgiving week. Jeff, Darla, and Elyse were able to leave Louisiana on Friday afternoon November 18 and arrived about 11:30pm. So after a brief visit, we put them to bed and anticipated the next day.

They got a reasonable night's sleep and the three of them go up and did their walks in the neighborhood. They always enjoy getting together with Marty Dye and he soon showed up. They took off on a shopping trip and spent time at the Mexican store in Mableton.

They came back with all sorts of goodies, but their most dramatic purchase was these huge pork skins from the Mexican store. Brenda takes a bite, but with this quantity of pork skin, they all just nibbled around the edges.

The kitchen island was the place for the tale of the shopping trip. Darla and Brenda listen to Jeff's and Marty's tale of the trip.

Elyse is keen on a cooking project, so that gives her some time with Grandma Brenda. It also shows how tall she has grown! Jeff, Elyse and Darla around the dining room table with their computers. Elyse is issued a computer from school and does some of her homework on it. It looks like Darla has a thick stack of papers to grade.

Sunday, November 20

Jeff, Darla, and Elyse took time for their walks and for breakfast. Rod and Brenda were off to teach their Sunday School class, and the others joined us for church.

We all had light lunches because the Thanksgiving Around the Table at church was scheduled for 5:30pm.

About mid afternoon there were smiles all around as we listened to Marty's truck run after a long silence. Jeff and Marty, and sometimes Darla and Rod too, had worked on it the last two visits. The serpentine belt kept jumping off, and it was determined that the vacuum pump was jammed. The problem had been corrected and now the truck was running happily.

Marty and Jeff had researched the situation and in light of the fact that there was no catalytic converter on this old truck, there was no need for the vacuum pump. So they removed it from the belt path by getting a serpentine belt that fit without that vacuum pump in the path. The truck cranked up and the new belt ran smoothly, so it was time to celebrate!

Mark had arrived to go to the dinner with us, so we gathered around the kitchen island about 4pm. Brenda had made a tray of brownies to contribute to the desserts at the dinner.

The dinner in the Fellowship Hall was catered by Cracker Barrel, so Betsy Weaver, Lalie Mode, Keith Weaver and others served. This was our first dinner like this since 2019 because of Covid concerns.

It was very pleasing that we could fill a table with family at this dinner. Marty was off for the weekend, so he could join the activities with us. Elyse is more into selfies than the rest of us, so she got the whole group in this one.

This view shows more of the crowd - more than a hundred people attended. It was a great fellowship.

After the dinner there was a gathering for a Monopoly gme. They enjoyed playing games in the evening, and Marty joined in and often provided the game. This time Brenda joined the Monopoly game.

Wednesday, November 23

Monday through Wednesday were a time for Jeff and family plus Marty to explore, shop, and relax. Evenings were game time. On Wednesday, Jordan could get off work so she and Luke headed north from New Orleans and arrived somewhere around 6pm.

At about 6:30pm we enjoyed a family dinner with Jordan and Luke included this time.

Around 7:30 we gathered in the dining room for a time of visiting. Ashleigh was constrained by her schedule as a third-year medical student and had to work until 4pm on Wednesday. She then took a flight from New Orleans to Atlanta and Jeff and Darla traveled to the Atlanta airport to pick her up. It was one of the busiest nights of the year for flights and they waited in line 45 minutes of more to reach the pickup area, but fortunately that was about the time Ashleigh made it through the crowd to be picked up, close to 10pm. We were pleased to now have all of Jeff's family with us in anticipation of Thanksgiving tomorrow.