CLAY AND WATTLES

Thanksgiving

The weather was perfect, the family time was wonderful, the food was more than plentiful, the travel was safe, the doggie pets got along like old chums, and I think Oscar is finally learning some manners with other people!

We missed Amy but one of her coworkers invited her to eat Thanksgiving with his family since the staff got to leave early yesterday. Thanks, James!

Mama Nick had driven her car to Aunt Ginny's and was watching the Macy's Parade when we got there. (First we left O at MN's house. Poor baby. But he was with us the rest of the day!) AG was finishing up and I was probably more in the way than helpful.

David, Sandra; then Jessica, Will; Jennifer and Dan arrived. AG had two tables set up and the younger folks sat at the "kids' table."

Aunt Ginny in her kitchen.

Me, Mama Nick and Aunt Ginny.

Aunt Ginny and Sandra looking at pictures of her and David's trip to Spain last summer.

Jessi, David and Jenni. (I was still experimenting with my camera.)

Paul sitting where Uncle Wendell always sat. I think every male we saw had a beard of some sort, so I can't say too much about Paul's. At least it is beginning to look like a beard and not so scraggly.

Dan, Jenni; Jessi, Will.

Sher and I always try to visit Mama's grave. There usually is no one else there but us; always so peaceful and quiet, as a cemetery would be, but it is off the beaten path, tucked away beside a small rural church.

Me, Mike, Sher, Steve. We are all getting gray!

Marsha, Mike, Benjamin, Sher, me and of course, Oscar.

Morgan and her boyfriend Steven. They were in the same frame as above, but didn't look quite part of the group, so I cropped them and made their own portrait.

This is Marsha and Darlene's first Thanksgiving and Christmas without Nanny and I know it is hard for them. Darlene's family, Marsha and Darlene's mother, and their brother Mike were there, but we leaving just as Sher and I returned from Pleasant Hill.

Sher asked Benjamin if sometime we could borrow the corner of his deck to make "our" picture, like the old days. Mike said, "I told ya'll somebody'd bring that up!" He knows his sisters! If we're all there Christmas, maybe then...