Happy Thanksgiving?

We are approaching Thanksgiving and it's starting to hit home. We had our Thanksgiving Dinner on Sunday and will be having another one this Thursday, but there were some changes in our Thanksgiving traditions that really made it feel like we were a long ways from home.

1)On Sunday, it was 90 Degrees outside and not getting dark at the normal time it gets dark out on Thanksgiving.
2)We were the only ones from our family in attendance.
3)There was football on tv...but not Thanksgiving football with the Lions and the Cowboys and you had to drive to the GQ to catch any of it (AND the Seahawks lost which is a touchy subject so I don't wanna hear about it.)
4)The potential for crazy storms and windy weather was at like negative 50 unlike home.
5)Even though I hate cranberry sauce (Kara likes it), there wasn't any at the Thanksgiving feast because it's almost impossible to find cranberries over here, and that was weird.
6)Today is Wednesday, and if we were in the States, we'd be going home from work around 10:30, but instead, we go home tomorrow at 11.
7)The Mashed potatoes were very good, and the gravy was good too, but it wasn't "mom's".

Anyway, the list goes on and on. Don't get us wrong, we really enjoyed the feast on Sunday; we just miss home a bit. We have great surrogate family over here in the Rainbolts and we get hugs from Emily and Jacob anytime we go visit which is awesome. Our decision to stay here for a third year will definitely be impacted by what their decision is. Mr. and Mrs. Shearer are almost like our parents. Mr. Shearer stops by every now and then to make sure we're doing okay which is pretty cool and Lori is a lot of fun to talk to about her sons Brett and Matt. Every Saturday I go over to Mr. Shearers office (sometimes at like 3 in the morning) and set up the PC laptop for him to listen to Matt play football for the University of San Diego and it's a lot of fun watching him and Lori listen as proud parents. Sometimes Kara and I will go over to his office before the game is over just to watch them listen and of course will play with Libby under the guise of, "We thought the game would be over by now." Anyways, there are things over here we do to remind us of home, but for now, it's a little rough. We miss the entire family, and really miss our Neices, Nephews, and King a lot (no offense to everybody else but seriously...Skyping with Anna, JB, Jessie, Benjamin, and King might just be our favorite thing to do over here.)

Anyways, I gotta get going, I have students coming into my classroom in about 5 minutes. See ya soon and Happy Thanksgiving!