Chick Chat: "We Thank Thee, O Lord."

It's been quite a day that began with the burglar alarm going off early this morning...the man shouting:

"BURGLARY BURGLARY. LEAVE IMMEDIATELY. YOU HAVE ENTERED A RESTRICTED AREA. AUTHORITIES ARE RESPONDING."

is not what every girl wants to hear when she wakes up.....but in this house it usually means someone in the family opened a door they weren't supposed to, so we roll our eyes and listen to Mom's heavy steps as she scampers to shut it off. Then the phone rings so the security people can say, "is everyone ok? What is your passcode?"

You know those commercials for security systems where someone breaks in and the woman gets the call and they heroically send help? Yeah, definitely NOT what happens here--because we don't have for real break-ins. Which I'm not complaining about. At all. But still I hate that alarm. And it would take an hour for us to have help. That's why we have multiple rifles--and why my daddy taught me to "shoot to kill".....I'm saving the police the trouble.

How did this get on guns?

I'm from Texas--everything can become a conversation about guns.

Back to Thanksgiving.

I got to talk to Kyle quite a bit today. Bestest blessing of the day. =) He got to say hello to the family, but more than anything we got to relish in our blessings together. And on this day of thanks we found out that we have living room furniture, a bedroom set, AND a washer and dryer given to us for our home. Can someone say that was an interesting thing to be given on a day of giving thanks?! Now we are looking for a dining room set, and a few other furniture pieces like bookshelves, another bed, etc.... God is so incredibly good, in spite of how little I deserve it.

As usual for Thanksgiving--we ate. and ate. we took a break....and ate some more. and I might never eat again.

and then like good children we took naps....

Ok, they took naps--and I took pictures. My camera and I do everything together--including taking pictures of my food. I think the poor helicopter pilot eating next to me thought I was insane for taking pictures of the food I was eating....and the food everyone else was eating...and people with their moths open.

Despite my strange quirks about my camera obsession, he seemed to like carrying on conversations with me about college. He was a medi-vac pilot in the 70's during the war and is piloting his own helicopter as we do hog maintenance this winter. I'm hoping to do my share of shooting from the copter this week--I wanna say I shot hogs from the air. Heck, I'd love to say I shot them on the ground! I can shoot a deer, but my last hog attempt resulted in scope bite. I'm hoping for redemption this year.

More food.

We opened the blessing box tonight. Having it up all year long is amazing because we had notes in it from people who have visited our home in the past months. So many blessing written and tossed in--Kyle's name was in there so many times--our military mentioned about 6....I won't lie, I cried like a baby though the reading. 10 weeks left--it was written in the box, and I keep telling myself that. So much for which to be thankful. God, may I not forget.

Things I woke up this morning most thankful for:

1. My God.
2. Forgiveness
3. Mercy
4. Grace.
5. Second chances
6. Hope of Heaven
7. Kyle--the love of my life
8. my family--both my present family and the one I am marrying that I already call my own
9. my precious friends
10. the future things to come.
11. the lessons from past mistakes that mold and shape who I am today.

Don't let the day end without stopping to remember and thank God for blessings--His blessings--the ones we don't deserve and yet, He's God and He gave anyway--" just because He can...because He's good" (Facing the Giants)