I don't know how many years we have left of seeing Santa, so I'm glad we went tonight to see our absolute favorite and the BEST Santa! Our local library brings him in every year, and he is so wonderful. What a blessing!
Whew- it's a ton of work, but we set up the Christmas decorations. We had one major glitch in that half the trees' lights were not working. I had to make an emergency run- on Black Friday!- to get new lights for the trees. Thankfully, it wasn't busy and wasn't a big deal.
Now we are ready for Christmas!
Claire and Camille are studying Native American history a little bit in our homeschool. They are reading this book:
It's all about tribes getting together for a powwow.
Then, we found out that there was a powwow in Denver. We decided to go and check it out.
I'm really, really glad we did.
I had never been to anything like this. I didn't have a clue as to what it was or what to expect. It was a competition- the different members from various tribes would compete against each other in various dances that they had learned from their ancestry.
It was truly beautiful. The respect for the culture, traditions, and for their families/elders is inspiring. We simply don't have anything like it in white culture. Maybe passing on our religion, but even that doesn't compare. This was really something so neat to witness. I'm really glad we went and tried something different, and learned a little bit more about this beautiful culture.
It also made me grateful for homeschool. Going to this powwow is a direct result from homeschool- like so many thousand of other things we have done over the years. We have done so many things I never would have thought of because of homeschool. And, most importantly, we got to enjoy them together as a family. We have all of these incredible family adventures and experiences. If it weren't for homeschool, the kids would have had wonderful experiences with their friends, not with each other. I'm selfish- I'm really, really glad we got to share them together instead of with friends.
Ben said 4 pies is too many for 13 people. So I stared at him in confused, awkward silence for 5 minutes until he slowly walked away.
We made turkey cinnamon rolls for breakfast. We made these last year, and Claire didn't forget, so I guess now they are our Thanksgiving morning tradition.
We had a wonderful meal by Ann. It was a great day with even better people! We are so, so blessed!
DJ's dad joined us which was great:
It's fun as the kids get older and get a little deeper, and sometimes sillier, with their answers of what they are grateful for. We truly are blessed! Here's some things we are grateful for:
-Scriptures
-Dad's sayings
-Quoting Evan (Cake!)
-House
-Scriptures
-Sledding
-Rain
-Traveling
-Technology
-Fruit
-Books
-Bedside pillows
-School
-Dessert
-Ice-cream
-Working from home
-Adjustable desk
-Friends
-Kind people
We got to go help first collect a whole ton of Thanksgiving dinners (meaning we helped moved them from the donors to the inside of the building to be sorted) to be handed out, and then handed those turkey dinners out to needy families. It was great. Even Claire said, "I love this!"
We went to Camp Christmas two years ago and it was so much fun. It was in a big shopping center, but this year they moved it to a park in Lakewood and it was even better. I think we need this to become a tradition- it is so cool! We had a blast. The weather was perfect, and even though we went before Thanksgiving, it was really fun.
