Giving Thanks at Thanksgiving

Joanna, Dylan, Jaclyn, and Derek

Derek, the lady's man

I think all that turkey did uncle Wes in!

Josh and I do the holiday swap with our families. I'm sure most of you do the same thing. We spend Thanksgiving with one family and Christmas at the other. Each year it swaps, so this year is Turkey Day with the Teeters clan and Christmas with the Ramsey's! This Thanksgiving feast was especially heartwarming because both of my brothers have recently returned home safely from the Marines. We also had my uncle Roy and aunt Barb and her husband Wes over at my parent's house to help celebrate. I think you'd all agree, we have been blessed in countless ways this year, and we give thanks to Heavenly Father for all of them. Funny story about "giving thanks..."

My good friend Lore shared with me one of her family Thanksgiving traditions. As everyone is seated around her mother's table and before everyone starts eating, they take turns sharing three things that they're thankful for. Oh, and they can't be any of the obvious answers, either. (family, friends, the gospel, etc.) I thought to myself, what an excellent idea!! So as my family was getting ready to dig in, I made the announcement that we were going to share one thing we were thankful for this year. (I figured I'd make it easy on them and just share ONE.) Forgetting that my family (minus my mom) is not religious at all, the reaction I got was a bunch of deer-in-headlights-looks!!! Uh oh. Talk about AWKWARD. Luckily my mom jumped right in and started us off, expressing her gratitude that my brothers came home safely to her, while this year so many parents will have to sit down to their first Thanksgiving dinner without their son or daughter killed in action. She added how hard it would have been if she had to set one less place setting for dinner that night. As we went around the table one of my uncles asked to be skipped over, both of my brothers chimed in with cynical comments, and I think I got a few cave-man-like grunts out of my dad. Sheesh. After that awkward social experiment, I decided that what I was most thankful for (in that moment, anyway) was my mother's innate ability to always have something to say!!!!! I love you mom!!!!!

I'm bummed that I didn't take any pictures of my mom's spread. She is super creative and festive when it comes to decorating and arranging her table for holiday meals, and this year's was no exception. All of the food she prepared was wonderful and tasty, and the table was beautifully done. I have to admire the work of women in making the holidays feel merry and special. Although it requires a ton of work and planning getting it all together, in the end, we're building memories and passing on good traditions that warm the heart and hearth.

We stayed a few days at my parent's house in Olympia and had a great time. It was the first time since last Christmas that all of us were together under one roof. Joanna and Jaclyn, and all of their girly cuteness, made even the toughest of Marine hearts melt. My brothers have an on-going contest to be the better uncle to these little ladies, so they were constantly playing with them and cuddling with them. Too comical!!

May the Force Be With You...and Hooah!!

The Ramsey's with Darth Vader. A little piece of trivia: Darth is actually a Japanese foreign exchange student volunteering at Boo Central. I know, weird. We didn't know that either.

Me and my girls

Joanna the Ewok!

Jaclyn is Yoda

Somebody stop that soldier! He has captured Yoda!!

How was everybody's Halloween? We hope that you all had lots of fun with your families. How did your kiddos fare? (If you have them?) Joanna and Jaclyn did better than we both expected. When you consider all that we adults subject them to on this holiday, they adapted and went with the flow pretty well! Joanna hated her Ewok costume in the beginning. She screamed and squirmed to take it off before we left the house. I think she was uncomfortable from the itchy material. And the hood was creeping her out. Jaclyn didn't like her long sleeves, I think because it made it hard for her to crawl. Then we added insult to injury and took them to chaotic and loud places like Trunk-or-Treat and Boo Central. Joanna was scared of half the costumes she saw and clung to me like a leach. Jaclyn gave everyone dirty looks! But once we arrived and showed Joanna that the prize for enduring such public humiliation was CANDY!!! Needless to say, she came around and enjoyed herself! Both Joanna and Jaclyn got lots of compliments on how cute they looked in their costumes.



Okay, now for a little explanation about Josh's costume. Our intention was for all four of us to be Star Wars themed. Josh was to be Han Solo. He didn't try on anything that he'd bought from the Goodwill until, say, five minutes before we were supposed to go, and when he looked at his ensemble in the mirror, he screamed, "I look like a gay Han Solo!!!" And sure enough, the pants were way too tight, the shirt showed off his chest beard, and the vest looked like something from the BeeGee's wardrobe. ;-)So we panicked for a split second, then decided that he could go as a member of a different alliance...the Army federation!! Hooah!!!!!! (If you didn't know, Josh used to be in the Army Reserves, so he still has his uniform.) We just told everyone that he was a Jedi soldier serving in the U.S. military. You know, top secret covert ops. ;-P

Chapter One of the Ramsey Clan Chronicles

Okay, okay, okay. You bloggers out there (you know who you are!) have convinced me that this is a great way for our family to stay connected with friends and family as everybody's lives grow increasingly busier in a world that's going completely virtual. As I have read all your blogs over the past year or so, I always feel somehow more connected to you, so my hope is that by keeping a blog, you can all feel closer and more connected to us! Because, after all, we're cool people and you want to stay in touch with us. ;-)
We want this to be fun and include plenty of updates and pictures to prove to you just how dull Josh and I really are. I know, I know, we've had you fooled all this time.
I am also super excited about keeping this blog to one day make a book out of it!! That's right. My good friend Anjuli told me about a website that takes your blog and creates a hard copy of it!! And since I am an inconsistent journal-keeper, I thought this would be the perfect solution. We can keep this virtual journal of our family and one day have its contents to reflect upon.