Thanksgiving weekend.

Last weekend was Thanksgiving and it was a pretty nice and relaxing weekend.

On Thursday, I coordinated the Thanksgiving meals and 52 meals came out of my site. Before the coordination, I met up with Charlene since it was her birthday. It was a nice way for her to start her birthday. Heath, Sarah’s boyfriend was preparing the Thanksgiving meal for a good number of people and Charlene was getting some items at the grocery store prior to meeting up with the rest of the family. We just had a nice breakfast before I had the coordinate the meals. I recognized a number of people who picked up the meals for delivery so that was nice. For my Thanksgiving meal, I ended up going to Eileen and Bernie’s for dinner. They are a wonderful couple from St. Catherine’s. Joel and Kathy were there too together with two other couples. We all knew one another so it meant a fun and joyful evening for all. We started at 2PM and I left their house at 7PM. Nothing was rushed and everyone had a good time. Oh, I’m not really a fan of turkey, but this turkey was delectable. It was a farm raised, free ranged organic turkey and my oh my, was it tasty.

I had no intention of shopping on Black Friday (the day after Thanksgiving which is the craziest shopping day of the entire year) so I had a leisurely morning. John had called to invite me over to visit his sister, Carol from Florida together with the rest of the Ludwig family. That’s kind of where I spent the morning – catching up with Carol and Warren and also just seeing the rest of the Ludwigs. Warren’s mother is in the early to middle stages of dementia so he had a number of questions for me especially since I work in the aging field. I felt I did my best to answer his questions. Later that afternoon, I worked at the facility and it was a real low key day. Some of the residents spent Thanksgiving with their family, but were just chilling the day after Thanksgiving.

Saturday morning, I spent a good portion of the day in the library since I knew there were not going to be a lot of people especially because of the amount of sales at the departmental stores. I borrowed a couple of cds to burn for my office computer and then went back to my apartment and read a book that I’ve been meaning to read for some time. Carola and I went to the Nutcracker Ballet performance at the Civic Center and I must say it was a wonderful experience. Carola insisted that the Nutcracker is one of those holiday traditions that I must experience once in my lifetime and I’m glad I did. There were so many dancers from so many age groups and dance schools. I think overall they all did a fine job. In the audience too, there were lots of kids especially girls all dressed to the nines excited about the performance. Anna came back from her Thanksgiving with her family and we met up with Charlene and family for dinner. They had prepared a meal for a number of international faculty and students at 2PM, but I told her I would not be able to make it until after the performance. I saw Sonia and Sarah too, so that was nice. There was more than enough food leftover for me and Anna. We helped clean a little but Charlene insisted we leave to do our own thing since we’ve not seen each other prior to Thanksgiving. After dinner, went to visit Paul and Heidi. Heidi gave birth to an adorable little baby girl named Catherine Elizabeth Kraus a week ago and we were both excited to see her. Paul and Heidi both belong to the young adults group and I’ve known Paul since my time at Drake. We graduated the same year at Drake. Talk about a great way to end the evening.

Sunday was pretty much the same stuff. Nothing too exciting happened. The residents all behaved themselves which meant that it was a quiet day.

This coming weekend will be packed with different activities going on and I’m looking forward to it. A number of my residents have fallen ill and I’m hoping and praying that I’m not going to. It is the season when people fall sick and that’s the last thing I need to have happen.