THANKSGIVING IN NEBRASKA

If there's anyone out there who can tell me what the secret is to arranging photos on these pages, I'd sure appreciate the suggestions. They fight and fight to go where they want to go. I have given up. I will write around them.







I decided, clear back in August when I made all these reservations, that after my first 4 weeks here I would head home to Pasco for my first 1 week long school break. It ended up being a glitch in the schedule the school sent out - actually, only my Monday class was canceled that week, so I actually missed my Drawing and Painting classes. That was okay, though I hated missing my Painting class because we met at the Met and the teacher walked us through some masterpieces. How I would have loved to have been there!
The next 4 weeks were spent with much less worrying about where I was and how to get places (it really is pretty small and compact and with the street numbering - you never are really lost) and much more settling in and enjoying this crazy place.


Then came Thanksgiving week, where I missed my Monday class, Sculpture, to fly for the whole week to Omaha to spend with my parents and 4 of my 6 sisters. It was such a quiet, pleasant visit and we spent a lot of time planning on where we were going to eat dinner the next day and then going to Pam's to eat her dinners. The group has grown substantially as both of Pat's kids, Melissa and Greg, have now moved to Nebraska and Pam's Erica moved there from Chicago as well. Melissa married Matthew and now has a little baby, Steven, and Greg is now engaged to Lindsay and Erica is engaged to Nate. Everyone came to just about every dinner so I had a great opportunity to get to know them and enjoy some large family dinners.

My favorite time is spent later in the evenings just watching TV and visiting with my parents and walking through the backyard to Pat's to sit and chat with her for hours and then spending a whole day with Pam who jumped in and helped me put some walls on this floor plan on the SIMS house. I wish I had had more time with Stacey but she's just starting a business that took a lot of her time and she is far more a 'group' person than me so we visited 'en masse'. Kathy missed Thanksgiving dinner because of a migraine but she came over a lot, though I am so very worried about the fact that she can't see 4" in front of her and yet, she drives a car!
It really was a great, fun way to spend the week and I realized, when I got back, that I was down to just 3 weeks left here. Today, is 2 weeks - and the countdown begins.