Thanksgiving 2023

 ** Guest Blogger **

Eric Hendrickson

For Thanksgiving, we went to Texas for a few days and then came back through Oklahoma on Friday night to go to the Thanksgiving gathering with some of Stacee's family in Lucien.

We played some good basketball games at Bret's school.  It was Bret, Marc, Sarah, and Kallin against Eric, Ayden, Phoebe, and Silas.  Both games were close, but my team won both games.

Silas really played well.  Here he is skying on his layup.

If the Hendricksons are playing, it will be competitive and rough.  I was undercut and landed on my hip.  It has been 3 weeks and it is still sore to the touch.

Bret had no mercy for his son and Ayden had no mercy for his sister.

Bret, Marc, Ayden, and I had planned on golfing this day.  I am glad we played basketball.  It was super fun and everyone got to participate. After basketball, we played a few rounds of dodgeball.  Stacee joined us for this. We played adults vs. kids, first team to 5 wins.  We had four adults, with Stacee playing, and the five kids. It was close to the end, but adults ended up with the overall win.

We got to feed Bret's school pet.

We stopped by Stacee's second cousin, Connie's, shop to visit and look around. (Connie is one of Gloria's first cousins. Gloria's Dad and Connie's Mom were siblings.) She owns and runs a store that most women would love, Farmhouse To Table, located in Fort Worth, only about fifteen minutes from my Mom's house. We spent about an hour there with Connie visiting. She was happy to have us there and Stacee loved getting to see her and hug her.

What would you do for a Klondike bar? Thanks Uncle Marc!

We all had a fun time playing UNO.

The kids liked UNO so much, they played it by themselves before the Thanksgiving feast.

Marc's girlfriend, Anna, spent Thanksgiving day with us. She even got in on the UNO fun.

None of the kids or I have done VR before.  It was cool.

We were glued to the TV watching football.  The boys helped very little with the dinner.  Andrea and mom (Sharon) did much of the preparation.  We had a great meal.

The kids weren't into the football games so they played outside.

Bret's house has a pool.  The kids wanted to go swimming. Temperatures were in the 40's/50's while we were there. I think it was more of a challenge to see who would actually jump in the cold water.

Here they go... 3, 2, 1, JUMP!

The kids were out in about 10 seconds.  Too cold.

Everyone warmed up by the fire.  Uncle Tom also joined us.

Good looking bunch. Below, left to right, Bret, Andrea, Phoebe, Ayden, Sarah, Eric, Stacee, Tom, Silas, Sharon, Kallin, Marc, and Anna.

As we were heading home, we stopped at a Buc-ee's. We hadn't been to one before. It was crazy busy.

We made it to Lucien just in time to visit, pray, and sit down for the dinner meal together.

Below, Georganna Kienholz Grant's family that was there, (Georganna's two children were Ernest Grant Jr., aka Ernie, and Gloria.) Pictured, left to right, Eric, Phoebe, Sarah, Paul, Stacee, Silas, Will, EP, and Lindsee.

It was a great Thanksgiving, except for the extra weight I gained.  I really enjoyed time with family.  I hope you had a good Thanksgiving and have a Merry Christmas.