Thanksgiving....a little late

What happened to my Thanksgiving post....it must have gotten lost on the way home from Valdez where I choose to knit instead of write(which successfully got me one of Zoe's leg warmers finished), or maybe it went down the toilet along with Jake's sickness on Tuesday of last week....needless to say this post is better late than never. I just had to blog about our wonderful Thanksgiving 'cause it was the best one the Foshee's have had in a long while!


As we made the drive down to Valdez to visit some of our "Alaskan Family" David & I discussed how we really hadn't established our own family Thanksgiving traditions. For the nine years we spent in Teller, we always joined the community Potluck dinner, which has a very interesting story of it's own...... I'll save for another time. Then in Koyuk we celebrated with just our family, which since we're social people...... it was a little lonely. Last year we enjoyed catching up with some frined in North Pole, but this year we decided that driving to Valdez to spend time with the Shidner's was a MUST on our TO DO LIST!! And we are SO grateful we did!!!!

Our journey began Wednesday after school was out, and of course we were running on "Eskimo Time" as folks in the village would say, not really getting in a hurry to get there. That's why Robert greeted us at 1:00 AM with "Finally, we wondered if you would EVER get here". You know the Shidner's HAVE TO BE like family 'cause who else would welcome guests into their home at that ridiculous hour!!! Lucky for us, our friends were still glad to see us even if they were yawning and rubbing their eyes. The road was a little hairy at Summit Lake and then again at Thompson Pass. Of course I was telling David to slow down when he was only going 40MPH...., but the kids stayed occupied with movies for most of the trip and I thought ahead and purchased a book LED light so that I could knit during the entire drive, while David and I listened to The Last Lecture on CD.



Thanksgiving was a causal affair for us, which was SO relaxing....we threw in the turkey, whipped up a couple of side dishes, Cynthia kneaded some of her Grandmother's rolls, we sucked down some coffee and headed for the hills to ski, snowboard, and sled at 37 degrees!!!!! It felt like a heat wave....since we had just come from -10!!! We were all shedding layers of outerwear while taking in the beautiful surroundings.



After some fun in the snow we headed back to have our meal "Happy Belly Commune" style (that is what Cynthia and I dubbed the shared apartments where we lived together in Teller, Ak for 4 years & it holds true for all of our gatherings). Everything was yummy and tasty..... but the company...... well it was nothing short of superb. In Alaska you aren't always able to gather together with your immediate family during the holidays, because most of them live so far away, so you create your own family with friends. After dinner we let things settle for a while and then headed over to the neighbors for dessert, tea, and great conversation.

Friday & Saturday brought more fun times: Talking during short walks with Cynthia on the well groomed trails, popping over to check out their local library, David & Andy tried to catch up with a friend, but missed him, so they enjoyed some cocktails instead, playing ping-pong at the rec center next of Cynthia's office,(felt like old times, we had a make-shift table set up in Teller in the basement of our apartment, but we always lost the balls in the pipe fittings), teaching Robert to knit an icord, checking out a new bakery, making music on the xylophone & keyboard, computer time, lots of board & card games, many laughs, shared memories, wine and great food.

More birthday celebrations

It seem that there is always somewhere to go, something to prepare, cook, clean up after, or get ready for, but we are very thankful to have the means to do all that we can, and have so many wonderful experiences and make so many wonderful memories with our children. Ben recently celebrated his 6th birthday! His "real" birthday fell on a Thursday so we had a small celebration with a birthday dinner.

His request for dinner was BBQ chicken legs(chicken on the bone as he calls it), baked potatoes, and artichokes. At first he has requested brussels sprouts, but when his brother said, "Oh yuck", he quickly changed his mind, probably to appease him. And what a nice evening it was to be with family and celebrate his birthday by telling him stories of his birth. Ben was ready to get out of mama's belly and into the world. Cynthia, a very close friend, was there to help me through the birth. She had prepared some aromatherapy washcloths to help ease my anguish, but once they were warmed in the crockpot, I said, "I think I am ready". Cynthia's response, "Oh not yet we didn't get to use the soothing cloths". Ben was a VERY easy baby and I called him my Gentle Ben. He is still pretty sensitive and loves to be my cuddle bug....who just likes to dress up like Prince Caspain. He had to show off his new knight hat along with the full ensemble.
Benjamin also wanted to celebrate with a few school buddies and our friends from Talkeetna who came up for the weekend to visit, but we decided that our driveway was probably to challenging for most folks so we booked some space at our local gym, the Alaska Club. The kids were able to enjoy a dip in the pool, some rock climbing, and a big screen TV, oh wait the TV was for daddy to watch the football game, the kids were more interested in watching cartoons in the kids area! It was all great fun!

Tina brought Ben a awesome dragon and Zoe a sweet fairy made from polymer clay and she also brought the supplies so that we could make our own creations, which is just what we did! Ben made nice boat with a flag, Zoe had some help from Tina, but was able to create her own fairy, Rich made a taco, Jake made a hot dog, and I made a rose with a loop for stringing it to make a necklace. It was great to create something from clay that is so easy for the kids to use. I can see us doing this for Christmas gifts!

Of course it wouldn't have been a "celebration" for Ben without game playing. He LOVES to play board and card games and the new Narnia Monolopy was the perfect gift for him, well until we let the Hum's play.....there was some great excitement at the table and a lot of "discussion", but also loads of fun. It could have only been better if the Holt's and Shidner's would have been able to join us too! Happy 6th birthday Benjamin!