Much to be thankful for.....

We enjoyed a Thanksgiving meal at home with all of our girls and the two older girls' boyfriends. The girls helped out with the cooking and setting of the table. It seemed like such a lot of food, but we have made quite the dent in the leftovers! And we did take a break from the turkey last night to head out to our favorite Mexican restaurant (inexpensive, but muy bien!)

On only one night of the year, Thanksgiving evening, cars are allowed to traverse the length of Nicollet Mall in downtown Minneapolis to see the holiday lights and decorations of "more than a half a million twinkle lights, 300 illuminated snowflakes and about 4,000 feet of natural garland. The mall's planters have been newly replanted with more than 5,500 spruce tips." It was dazzling! We also got see the crowds of people lining up at the downtown Target. Over the course of day the balmy weather that we woke to Thursday morning gave way to snow and plummeting temperatures, so everyone was bundled up - hopefully the deals were worth that cold wait!

We're not real big on shopping, and especially with crowds (online shopping R us,) so we've been hanging out and visiting and playing card and board games. The beautiful annual wreath that my husband's aunt sends was hung up on the door on Friday. Later we cuddled onto the couch with blankets and cocoa and watched the first on our holiday movie-viewing list - "It's a Wonderful Life". The holiday season is here!!

Later this morning we'll do our annual trek to Clear Lake and choose and cut our tree. We'll ride the wagon pulled by Maggie and Mike the Percherons - the driver has been the same through these 20-some years we've been coming here, and his team is ALWAYS Maggie and Mike So we'll sing some carols (the driver says the horses insist!) and pet Maggie and Mike and the other barn animals, take pictures with the llama because she has pretty eyes, get our candy canes from Santa...oh, and remember to strap our tree to the top of the van. We'll take this over a shopping trip anytime!

I've been squirreling away baking supplies during sales for the past few weeks. I put some butter on the counter to soften for later today - we'll do my oldest's favorite, chocolate crackles. We'll bake enough to send some along when she heads back to school tomorrow. I already pulled banana and pumpkin breads loaves from the freezer to send along too - her college crowd loves homemade baked treats (which is handy, as I love to bake for an army!)

On the medical front, we spent Wed at the hospital redoing some testing on our youngest. The course of treatment that she had been following for the last 2.5 yrs suddenly wasn't working the last 1.5 months. Based on the new test results, the cardiologist prescribed a new treatment plan, and we are hopeful. The Dr still calls her his one-in-a-million case - he and his colleagues have never seen a case so extreme. We're still hoping it will be something she outgrows. We're now letting her old meds clear out of her system, and she's already feeling better, which makes it feel that we are indeed moving in a positive direction. I know there are many times side effects to using meds, and that often you have to choose which is worse - what is being treated or the treatment itself - and it seems we had run the course for those meds. We'll start the new med tonight, and hope, hope, hope and hope again.....and pray a whole lot.

Luckily, or maybe not, we've met our medical deductible early in the year - I think maybe March or April. We tried out the HDHP/HSA, and while I panicked a little at first, it worked out well. So well in fact, that I went ahead and chose that option again for next year. Granted the only other option isn't all that great, and there is more company financial incentive offered for the HDHP...I'm sure I'll be panicking again come the first few months of the new year but I'll be fine,gray hairs and all

Hope everyone is enjoying a wonderful Thanksgiving weekend (or recovering from the rash of illness several here have been dealing with!) Take Care!!