The next day was Thanksgiving Day.  It was our first Thanksgiving Day together outside of Arizona; that, in and of itself, was very odd for us.  It was odder still that we weren't the ones cooking - we weren't even contributing a dish!  But it was going to be nice to celebrate Thanksgiving with the extended family for once.

We arrived for the Thanksgiving celebration at 11:00 a.m., as indicated by Lotte.  Omi and Opa were already there; Omi was in the kitchen, helping Lotte cook dinner, and Opa was seated in the front room, talking to Uncle Richard. 

As soon as we were seated in the front room, Uncle Richard sent Mary to fetch us some cold beers, which were in an ice chest in the screened porch.  For the rest of the day, that was her job: beer girl.  I'm sure that we probably shouldn't have been encouraging that type of behavior in our five year old, but it was awfully cute and it did keep her busy.

It also produced one of her more classic lines.  A month later, as John and Mary and I were on our way to a Christmas party (hosted by one of John's employees), we were talking to Mary about how to behave at the party, when she let out a big sigh.  "This party is going to be stressful," she said. 

"Why is that?" we asked.

"Because I don't know if I can get that many beers!"

Later that afternoon, the rest of Lotte's guests arrived: Rick and Shirley; Richard's son Richard (or "Young Richard", as he was called), with his new wife Sharon and Sharon's daughter Kristen; and Young Richard's mother Margaret.  This was the first time that we had had the opportunity to meet Sharon and Kristen; they were both very nice!  Mary spent a good part of the day playing with Kristen, who was a teenager; they got along very well.

Around 3:00, we all sat down to Thanksgiving dinner...and what a feast it was!  It was all delicious, and we stuffed ourselves to the gills.  Did you ever eat so much that you couldn't even get a buzz from an adult beverage?  That was me that evening!

And then, there was dessert, too!  I knew that they were going to have to roll me out of there when it was time to go.

After dinner, we spent the evening outside, watching the neighborhood squirrels jump from branch to branch in the trees in Lotte's yard.  It was the first warm, sunny day of our trip (and by warm, I mean that the high temperature was over sixty degrees, which meant that it was the warmest day in comparison to the others!), so we wanted to go out and enjoy it before it turned cold on us again.

At the end of the evening, as the sun began to set, we all said our good-byes and thanked Lotte for an amazing Thanksgiving dinner.  And with that, we started the long drive back to the Lake House in Chapin, to turn in for the night...

Return to Giving Thanks.

Return to Naked in the Woods.