Thankful for Thanksgiving Pt II - The feast

Thursday: Straight to the kitchen!  The potatoes and gravy were ready, but I still had a huge green salad to prepare and then biscuits to roll and bake.  It was a fun day, though.  Everyone converged back on Tom's apartment, where two folding tables had been assembled with chairs for the four o'clock feast.  Tom was babying his 12 pound slab of beef, and everyone else was nursing a whiskey or cocktail of some kind.  Daniel, Tom's brother, and I took on Tom and Julie, Daniel's wife, in a couple games of dominoes.  We left it a tie because the kids and food were both needing attention.  Tom's friends Forrest and Karen arrived with little Will and two more dishes.  Wow - once all the food was on the table, there were steaks, mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes, stuffing, biscuits, corn casserole, gravy, green salad, fruit salad, and green chilies.  Ooof!  I ate stuffing, both potatoes, corn, and a biscuit, and I thought I was finished.  I did try some fruit salad, but only a little.  When the pumpkin pie was served, only half of one of the two pies got eaten!  I took the three kids for a walk to stretch my legs a little, but to no avail.  I would have to wait for a piece of pie for breakfast.  I guess all the snacking that started at noon did me in.  Especially those pumpkin empenadas!    More games and playing ensued after dinner, but by 8 pm I think everyone had headed out.  We were all so pooped from eating.  I made it up only a little bit later.  I kept thinking about how a year ago I celebrated Thanksgiving in Argentina on the farm before embarking into Patagonia.  Crazy how time flies!!!   My favorite part of the feast was a really nice grace that Daniel offered.  I felt honored, so far from my own family, to be with such a great family.  My heart was really filled with an awareness of how blessed I am.  I am blessed!