Thanksgiving Joy...Sudden Sadness...Brightness and Light.

Dinner for 27 went off with minimal hitches.

The dining room looked gorgeous....I'd show photos except my IPhone for some reason refuses to send me my photos from my phone any longer and I can't quite figure out why.

The meal was delicious; the turkey's white meat was a tad dry which disappointed me, but I think it's because there was quite a lag between the time it was done to the time we ate.  Not a huge deal - but I had some help in the kitchen and I think it just got a little too...distracted.  No worries though, it was a good time with good food, family and lots of laughs.  A lot of cleanup afterwards, I won't lie - it sure felt great to lay in bed at the end of the night!

The rest of the weekend was a little traumatic.  One of my two cats, Twinkle (remember earlier posts from a few years back "Twinkle little cat"...) had to be put to sleep.  I did not see it coming.  She'd been to the vet over the last month for what they thought was an issue with a UTI - turns out the poor thing was in kidney failure, either due to genetic disease or kidney cancer.  I brought her to the vet on Saturday morning because she was no where near herself - and we got the awful news that evening at 5pm.  (This photo I took of her, ironically enough - the Tuesday prior to her passing. She was fine - I no way so this coming.  SO very sad..)  I've never had to put a pet down before, the ones I've always had, died on their own.  So this was so very new to me - and to prepare my children was gutwrenching.  They were devastated and so was I, but I was so very proud of them and they way they handled the situation overall.  We were with her when she was set free, and we will have her ashes in a few days.   My poor little Twinkle toes.....

Later that day, G went out to buy our new faux Christmas tree.  I requested a 7.5 one - at the largest, 9.5ft.  Mmkay, he came home with a 12ft tree!

I took this picture yesterday...today I put the ribbon around it in a beautiful peacock blue.  The best part about the tree - is that decorating it put smiles on the kids faces once again.  They were really, so very sad that they didn't even want to do the tree.  Fortunately that changed once they saw the monstrosity of it! (Again, I'd show you a photo but the silly IPhone is not cooperating with me today.)

And then we had our outside decorated as well, so last night we were looking very shiny and bright.

All in all, the weekend was exhausting and exciting, emotional and nothing short of busy. 
I wouldn't want it any other way.
(Well, minus the sadness of course...!)