Thanksgiving

We have been so busy that time is just flying by.  Thanksgiving is already over and now Christmas is on the way!  For Thanksgiving we reserved the church again, as last year, and invited anyone who needed a place to go or didn't want to do it with just their family alone.  It was a lot of fun.  We ate, watched the Detroit Lions game, and played board games for hours.  We had missionaries join us and 4 other families.  I didn't think to take a single picture other than this one - Peter willingly playing with someone his own age!!  It took about 2 hours for him to warm up enough to talk to anyone, but then he played until we left.  It was so fun to see.

Before the big day, Peter and I took part in a tour of the Detroit Thanksgiving Day Parade Factory.  The Detroit Thanksgiving Day parade is the 2nd or 3rd (depending on who you ask) largest annual parade in the country and the floats are absolutely spectacular.  The people who make them have set up business in an old Chevy plant in Detroit and in order to raise money for the supplies, they give tours all year round of the floats, the creative process, etc.  We went with Peter's school and I thought he'd have fun but he pretended not to know anyone the entire time we were there and spent the two hour tour begging to go home.

I, on the other hand, had a fabulous time.  It was fascinating and ended way too soon for my taste.  At the end we were all given clown noses and that seemed to cheer him up.

Bella also participated in a tour of the same facility with her school group from her graphic design class.  She loved the tour too.  I think next year we may need to rethink our Thanksgiving traditions and take a trip downtown to see the parade.

While we were downtown, Peter and I stopped at the Light the World Giving Machine our church set up.  It's a vending machine that allows you to buy things for other people to benefit local charity organizations.  We did this in Indianapolis last Christmas and it was fun to have one so close to us.  Peter selected to buy a "Safe Birth for a Mother."  I thought that was sweet.  He didn't like the idea of taking a picture, though.

Peter can be a stodgy old man sometimes, but he's also incredibly sweet.  I find notes like these all the time.

Although, sometimes notes like these:

                                    (Chris is playing too loud and I have to cover my ears)

He never calls him Chris, but I guess Christian was really too long to attempt.  This was given to me during Christian's saxophone lesson.  :)

Peter's school had the whole week of Thanksgiving off so we took a trip to the zoo one day.  The Detroit zoo is really great if you're interested in doing a lot of walking and not seeing a lot of animals.  We took comfort in the fact that it was such a sunny, beautiful day and we had the place nearly to ourselves - just like Peter likes it.  We spent the most time with the penguins and the butterflies - the animals which are enclosed and visible.  And one of the birds in the aviary dropped a large, beautiful pink feather right where Peter could grab it and that made him so happy.

Sunday was the first advent, and so, per tradition, we put up the tree and took out all the fun, festive stuff.  Bella is never happier than when we're prepping for Christmas.  She wanted to be sure to be the one to put up the star and it was so fun to see how excited she got about it.

Christian has been working so hard in everything - robotics, school, piano, saxophone, applying to MSC - the STEM program in high school he wants to enter, etc. that he hardly has time to sleep.  Not to mention keeping up with the Lions and the rest of the NFL!  :)  This was a project he did for school - a cell cake.  Make a cake that looks like a cell with all it's different structures and organelles using candy.  I had to laugh because I had done the exact same thing in Biology class when I was in school.  They chose to do a plant cell and I think it turned out really cool.  Green frosting and purple cookies courtesy of me.