Our Thanksgiving....

Since we've been married, we've been hosting Thanksgiving at our house. Our families aren't huge in numbers, so it works out well to have Marc's parents as well as my parents, brother and sister-in-law and two nieces, and my grandparents all over for one big dinner. For our wedding, we received a turkey fryer, so each year, the guys spend time outside frying the turkey. Everybody else chips in with food, so I'm only left with preparing the mashed potatoes, a salad of some sort, and usually at least one pie. Not too bad....

This year, however, we did something a bit different. Marc and I "signed up" at church to host an international student from Wichita State University. So, Srinivasa Perumal Velu joined our family for dinner. Srinivasa is from India, and he's a graduate student working on a master's degree in aerospace engineering. It was great having him join us, and I think we all learned something about India. He seemed to get in on all of the activities.

Here's a photo of Marc, Joel (my brother), and Srinivasa -- getting the turkey ready to go into the fryer.

While the turkey was frying, Marc, Srinivasa, my brother, and my dad played Corn Hole -- the game with which our boards were constructed by Joel Smith.

The two teams were Joel/my dad and Marc/Srinivasa. They played several rounds, both before and after dinner. Marc is proud to say that he and Srinivasa won every round.

Here's another shot of the Corn Hole game.

Here's a shot of the turkey, frying in the big pot.

After our large meal (which Srinivasa said he got to try some new foods as part of Thanksgiving), the guys once again played Corn Hole. They also did their tradition of shooting BB guns off of our back deck. Even Srinivasa shot the BB gun -- a new activity for him.

We've got to think that he had to have been thinking, "This is all a bit different than what I expected.

It was interesting because after he came in from all of the outside activities, he said to me, "It's not fair that all of the women seem to be doing all of the cleaning up while the guys are outside having fun."

Hmmmm......

How did Luke take to his first Thanksgiving? Well overall, he didn't too bad. It helped that we were at our home, where he could take his usual naps in his own bed. Luke's a very scheduled person (you think he might get that from his parents?). He doesn't exactly do real well off of his schedule. Considering all of the people at our house and his young cousins making noise, he did fairly well until the end. I think, at point, he had enough.

After everybody had left, he was playing in his little gym. He fell right asleep in the middle of playing.

Thanks Srinivasa for coming over and joining our family on Thanksgiving. If you're still in Wichita next year, we hope you will join us again.

We have so very much to be thankful for. Thanks be to our God for all that He has provided.