We have so much to be thankful for!

We spent Thanksgiving week at Candice, Marina, and Stella’s home on the edge of the Saguaro National Park in Vail, Arizona.  It was endless days filled with fun, laughter, delicious food, and of course, love.

Our hike—which really turned out to be just a fun walk around the acreage surrounding their beautiful home.

Candice cooking her famous chicken curry…it’s a real treat.  Of course, everything she cooks is delicious!

We brought all my jewelry making supplies.  The girls been making jewelry with me since they started walking.  It is something we always look forward to.  They are very creative and artistic.

Grandpa always admires their creations.  This is one of his “jobs”, and both he and the girls get great joy from this.

We celebrated Marina, Stella, and Candice’s birthdays.  I made a cake and we had special presents for each of them.

For Marina’s 18th birthday, we made her books filled with photos of all the adventures and time that she has spent with us through the years when she was a child….books of Marina with Grandma and Grandpa.

Stella is soon to be sweet sixteen, so we gave her family heirlooms snd jewelry that had belonged to her great grandmother Burt, great grandmother Johnson, and to me, her grandma Vicky.  This is a family tradition that I started 29 years ago when Rachelle turned sixteen.

We gave Candice the perfect gifts for someone who loves the outdoors and Arizona as much as we do—Arizona Trail socks, an AZT scarf (that depicts the multitude of snakes and insects found in the Arizona deserts), and an Arizona Highways book of award winning photos that have been taken throughout the last 50+ years.

For a final adventure before Thanksgiving, we cycled on the 55+ mile Tucson Loop with Candice.  Every city should have bike trail like this loop….it is a real treasure right in the middle of a major city!

We had all of this fun in just the three days BEFORE Thanksgiving!  

I forgot to mention, we are staying in the guesthouse, which is surrounded by the Saguaro National Park with views of  Rincon Peak and Mica Mountain.  The “little” guesthouse is bigger than both our home in Leisure World and our cabin in Pine.  What’s more, Candice has extended an open invitation to us to stay here whenever we want to. A very generous offer.  She had better watch out—we just might move into this vacation paradise permanently!

Tomorrow is Thanksgiving, and we can hardly wait.  Stella made a cheesecake, she and Marina are making a berry pie, Marina has a fancy baked vegetable dish that she’s preparing, and Candice has a huge turkey in the refrigerator with all the trimmings. 

Let’s see…what are we bringing?  A family tradition, my mother’s broccoli casserole and, of course, ourselves, Grandma and Grandpa.  Grandpa was going to make his "famous" green bean casserole (which has three ingredients and takes about 30 seconds to make), but decided that it would be kind of pitiful next to what everyone else was making.  :)    

This morning, CNN had a Thanksgiving Day quiz....which we did terrible at.  But one answer we both knew:

So you can see, Grandpa is being kind and giving up his traditional 1950’s Thanksgiving Green Bean Casserole, and letting all the rest of us cook his Thanksgiving dinner.  He WILL watch us, tell us all how good it all looks and smells, and do the taste tests.  How sweet of you, Grandpa!

What’s more….on Thanksgiving, Marina is going to give us all a singing recital.  And we have a surprise performance planned.  As I said—we can hardy wait!