a home for the holidays

I was going through my photos tonight and found these that I never posted from Thanksgiving.

Last year, I went home for the holiday, but this year it was just too unrealistic. So I went home with one of my best friends from up here. She has the sweetest family and I felt right at home immediately. They were such a blessing! It was also really interesting to see how another family celebrated and what they're traditions were.

The week of Thanksgiving, Spokane was hit pretty hard by a big snow storm, so roads were icy and we were hesitant to drive to the West Side. So we ended up getting train tickets since snow doesn't deter the trains very much, if at all. It sounded like a great idea. But we ended up getting barely any sleep because our train kept getting delayed and delayed and delayed. We ended up spending almost four hours at the train station waiting to leave. It was quite the adventure just getting out of the city! Once we were finally on our way (in buses since they eventually just cancelled the train and had to find us alternative transportation...), the Pass was perfectly fine and we arrived sometime around 7:30 or 8:00.

Thanksgiving itself was very laid back and nice. My friends family was adorable and I was actually confused for her older brother's fiancee in the beginning because her aunt and uncle hadn't seen what she looked like really. We ate a lot and put together a puzzle, had a Thanksgiving quiz, and ended the night with some songs of thanksgiving from some hymn books, finishing off with the Hallelujah Chorus (which I know pretty much backwards and forwards because of choir in high school for four years). I also called all my family and was able to talk to everyone all at once, which was hectic and fun and was the only time that I was really homesick that weekend.

The next day we went to a Christmas tree farm and chopped down our very own tree. It was a brand new experience that was pretty amazing. We spent the rest of the day working on homework. But then the following day my friend and I went into town and looked around different antique shops and sang Christmas songs with the radio like lunatics. And that afternoon I was privy to their Christmas decoration extravaganza. Their whole family gets together and decorates the house and puts up the tree and then stand there when they're done with the lights off and 'ooh' and 'ahh'. I felt like just another one of the family hanging ornaments and putting up nativity scenes and goofing off while The Chipmunks Christmas album blares in the background. And then later that night we went to an engagement party for her older brother and his fiancee.

After church we drove back to school on Sunday and it was back to the daily grind of school work and classes. But it was definitely a nice break and made me quite thankful for all that God has given me and made me look forward to going home and being with my own family for Christmas. (Which is in only a few days now that I'm mostly done with finals and am flying back down to California on Saturday!)