We celebrated Thanksgiving and my family's Christmas in Indiana. We would all love to be together for both holidays (right sisters? you would love to be with me right?) but with the increasing distance between our families we decided that staying at the WGM guesthouse (where Dad works) and celebrating both holidays at the same time was the next best thing.
Mom worked so hard so that we didn't have to (given that our family had just come off of 2 weeks of vomiting, Anne is working full time and Adriel just started a new job) and did most of the cooking and preparing (Thanks Mom!). We had a great Thanksgiving meal, a fun time opening gifts together, and just generally enjoyed each other's company.
So things went really well until Kevin and the guys nearly burned down the guesthouse and the fire department had to come out.
Kevin wanted a fire after our Thanksgiving meal, which seemed like a lovely idea. Unfortunately, the fire was lit in a working fire place with a chimney that had been closed off in the attic. So while the men enjoyed the warmth of the fire, we women began noticing an awful lot of smoke. We tried opening doors and windows to combat what was certainly just smoke from "wet wood." But the smoke kept building and then it was discovered that there was no chimney (all the smoke was pouring out of the attic vent) and the fire needed to be put out immediately. After a short brainstorming session on how best accomplish this, water was poured on the fire, which set of the alarm, which alerted the fire department, which is how we ended up with this picture:
Which is just how we like our family gatherings...always balancing the tension between "funny" and "that could have been really really bad."
We also hosted a graduation ceremony for Nate, who just finished his doctorate, and Adriel, who just got a big promotion at work. After the fire, this seemed pretty normal and low key:
Not pictured is me singing "One Moment In Time"--a personal favorite of mine. And like most of my favorite songs, I know between 2 and 3 lines. I don't think there was a dry eye in the house...either that or the residual smoke was stinging our eyes. Anyway, I think both Nate and Adriel were caught up in their one moment in time while I sang. (And Dad, if you have any love for me, never ever circulate that video).
We rounded out the trip to Indiana with a stop at our friends' house for the night and a visit to our church in Anderson. It was so good to be with family and then with dear friends and we came home happy and tired and smelling like smoke.
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