Things I missed while in Ukraine

(Laura looked through my rough drafts and was disappointed I never published this blog post. I don't know why it never was "published." So, to please Laura, and even though this is very outdated, I will post something I wrote in June 2013 just after we adopted.)

We had a great time in Ukraine. We really did. But we wanted to be home... And so, to keep a positive attitude, I tried to find things to be thankful for. It was pretty easy really.

Things we were thankful for (in no particular order) :
Good health! (I was walking around with a kidney stone, and it only reminded me it was there a couple of days out of a whole month!)
A shower with good water pressure (especially when it got hot)
Wonderful weather (vacation type weather!)
A store right near the church that sold COLD Pepsi
80 cent hamburgers and 40 cent ice cream cones at MacDonald's
Two concierges that made us feel welcome
Friends that took good care of us
Wireless internet (we really didn't expect to have this)
God's hand in the details, and in the big things!

Things I am thankful to have at home (and I hope to never take them for granted again) :
A washing machine
A clean towel whenever I want
A frig, a stove, a kitchen sink, well ok, the whole kitchen!!!
Drinkable tap water
Peace and quiet (the only thing that wakes us up is birds singing)
A double bed
A yard
A houseful of activities to keep kids busy
Camembert (I added this one for Philip. I didn't really miss it)

Thanksgiving in France Part I

Thanksgiving is not a holiday in France. But we still usually celebrate it. Since Philip is working and some of the kids are in school on Thursday, we usually wait until Sunday. I might be tempted to skip all the work, but the children won't let us. They obviously enjoy eating the traditional Thanksgiving meal more than I enjoy making it! But before judging me too harshly on my laziness, realize that making a Thanksgiving meal here, means making most things from scratch! This includes cutting up the pumpkin and boiling it, before I can make a pumpkin pie. It also means making cream of mushroom soup if we want a green bean casserole. That's right, no canned soup in France, and no canned pumpkin! And NO canned cranberry sauce either! But we are lucky to live on the Belgian border where we can purchase Ocean Spray fresh canberries.

We tried to order a turkey from the butcher one year, but ended up with two 7 pounders instead of the 15 pounder I ordered. Just NOT the same thing! (At Christmas, it is EASY to buy a big turkey!) So we found the answer. We raise our own now. This is trickier than it sounds. We have never succeeded in getting a turkey to set on her eggs. So we buy baby turkeys. But turkey babies are very delicate, and die easily. Especially if they get wet. And turkeys are too stupid to stay out of the rain of their own free will. But we have gotten pretty good at it, and usually have 2 or 3 that survive til Thanksgiving.

Here is this year's lucky bird.

One of our guests (a fellow student of Mélanie's from Morocco) asked to come a day early and help us.

And here is our 22-pound turkey!!!