Yes, Good morning SNOW!!!! It has been snowing off and on for the past several days, since Thanksgiving actually, when it was forecasted. But it has not snowed enough to show really. Just a few iced over leaves and a wet ground, which is actually pretty normal here. The wet ground, not the iced over leaves. But this morning...wow, everything is covered in snow. About an inch at most but its all white. So pretty!!! I should get out with my camera and go take pictures but for now you get a photo taken from phone which was taken through a window which is reflecting back the kitchen so sorry that its a bit...(insert word I can't think of right now, here!)
Anyways, This past week as 100 percent of you people know was THANKSGIVING. I feel as though I made a few hundred posts about what i was thankful and still didn't even hit the tip of the iceburg on everything. I don't know what it is but I have had a life change since moving here and maybe its because I no longer in "school" or have finally found where I really belong (for now) or that there is always a new adventure right around the corner or that I am loving every aspect about life, but my heart is constantly overflowing with reasons and things to be thankful for and it is confined to the one week of Thanksgiving. I am so thankful for the life that I have and the opportunities that I have and the friends and family that I have and every little detail about my life and how God orchestrated it all just for me and for his glory. Blows my mind.
But anyways, this week I had the pleasure of celebrating Thanksgiving FOUR times with four different sets of friends and in four different ways and it was amazingly fabulous!!! This Saturday was probably my most memorable and favorite experience of the four because it was the one that was most like home. A girl (and friend) from my connect group (bi-monthly bible study) invited everyone to her house (she lives in the suburbs not too far from me) to have a Thanksgiving feast there. She is French but she lived in the States for 8 or so years and very happily adopted a lot of American traditions, Thanksgiving being one of them. It was a more intimate atmosphere and I knew more of the people and while the food was the least like what I have had in the past years with my family, i realized it was the company that made it the most like home. And the funny part was that of the people there, there were only 5 or so Americans and that was the least amount of Americans at any of my other Thanksgivings, yet it felt the most like home. Anyways, it was an exhausting yet fabulous day of eating and having fun and expressing our thankfullness and eating some more.
Yesterday I had the opportunity to spend Thanksgiving with my neighbors and some of their friends. My neighbors I met a while ago when I was outside and heard some "american english" as I call it and decided to eventually go over and meet them. This was when I first moved here and american english was very enticing! anyways, they are a very sweet family comprised of a french mom, spanish father and american children. The mom and dad met in the States and had their kids in the states and moved back to France about 8 years ago they said so they are very much a multicultural family. They are all tri lingual which is amazing and the children all go to the international school in the area for french and english. anyways, they spend thanksgiving every year with another family that they have known since they were living in the states that is made up of an american mom and a french father and i think the kids were born in france but heck if i know. anyways, that was an experience in and of itself. a fabulous one, but definitely one for the memory books!!! The whole evening was a random mixture of french and english and sometimes spanish depending on who was talking and who they were talking to and i loved it!!! And i loved being able to have a glimpse inside another french-ish family and how they do life. What was really cool was that my neighbor knows that I am a Christian and that church is important to me and so they asked me to say the prayer before we ate the meal and I was honored to do so. They were very inspired by my prayer (Even though it was from the heart and i meant every word of it) and were thankful for that.
All in all, this weekend was crazy busy and hectic but I would have to say that while I do and did miss everyone back home and bummed I couldn't be there to spend thanksgiving together, my first one away from home was not lacking in any way!!! I had turkey three times, a few other cultural dishes, heard different stories and experienced different things. My life here is more than I could have ever dreamt of or thought of for myself. It exceedes my expectations and dreams and I am forever thankful and grateful to God who has allowed for this but also to everyone who has opened their arms and their homes (no matter how big or how small haha) to me.
I'm off to go play in this snow before it melts away!!!!!!!
LOVE moi
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