Happy Thanksgiving

 For home and sleep

For food to eat

For family and friends

 and love without end.

 For laughter and fun

For rain and for sun

 For all this and more...

 we Thank YOU dear Lord.

 Oh give thanks to the LORD;

Call upon His name.

Make known His deeds among the peoples...

Oh give thanks to the LORD for He is good;

For His steadfast love endures forever...

Save us, O God of our salvation,

and gather and deliver us from among the nations,

that we may give thanks to Your Holy Name,

and glory in Your praise.

~from 1 Chronicles 16:8,34,35~

I Really Wanna Tell You I'm Sorry

So, we were preparing to leave my Ant and Uncle's home after a more than lovely Thanksgiving celebration.

My Uncle John had just hooked my Man and Cole up with some tickets for the BIG Game the next day, and life was sweet. 

The children had all been gathered and placed in the van, except for Meg who was bound for Grandma camp.  I stopped to tell Meg good bye and my Uncle John was talking with my Man at the van while holding the passenger side door open for me to get in, ever the gentleman.  There seems to have been some confusion regarding whether to converse through the open car window or to open the car door for the post Thanksgiving discussion, but the opened door was settled upon and when I got into the car all was well.

Thank you's and good travel wishes expressed, the children were nestled all snug in their car seats, Christmas music was playing on the radio...when "YYEEEEOOOOOOWWWWW," cried my Uncle jumping into the air and holding his hand at a rather odd angle. 

"Oh!" said my Man who in seeming slow-motion, groped for the window button which he'd just engaged and in so doing, caught my Uncle's thumb in the window.  

I, mere inches away, was still trying to figure out what had just happened.  I looked at the window which was an inch short of being closed, and assumed that it was just a close call.  That did not, however, jive with the obvious pain my Uncle was attempting to hide as he remained in the drive way until we backed out.  It turns out that the inch short of closed window that I had observed was the result of the reopening of the window to release our captive, the provider of the home for our Thanksgiving festivities and the football tickets to be enjoyed the following day.  Geesh, my Man felt horrible. 

We called from the road, to make sure Uncle John was as "all right" as he claimed and we learned that the injured thumb was under ice and all seemed well, or at least better.  Unbeknownst to us, it seems a purple hue was creeping over and pressure was increasng under my Uncle's thumb, the same thumb that would be necessary to insure a certain football team was properly taped and readied to take the field the next day.

Allow me to pause here and share that my Man is not alone in his assault on my Uncle with the car window.  Based on a telephone survey conducted by Kids and Cars, a nonprofit child safety organization, more than 13 million adults in the US have injured someone they know by closing a car window.  How about that?  I need to alert the "Kids and Cars" survey folks to add another to their tally.

The next morning, Cole awoke counting down the hours until the big game, planning his cold weather wardrobe with great care.  Finally, FINALLY the time came for their departure.  The forecast predicted some pretty chilly temps, so blankets and hats and gloves and hand warmers and hats were gathered and off they traveled.

Upon their arrival in Morgantown, my guys would learn that the events surrounding my Uncle John's injured thumb did not, in fact, end with an ice treatment.  Apparently in the middle of the night the pressure under my Uncle's thumbnail grew painful to the point of action.

NOTE:  If, like me you are a bit queasy by nature, you may want to read the next paragraph or two with a nice cold glass of ice water at hand.

My Uncle John, would never have told us how awfully much he was hurting.  He didn't have to tell us, however, for when we heard what treatment he directed my Ant Sab to undertake, we knew.  In the next scene you will find my Ant in her jammies drill in hand, searching for the necessary size drill bit.  Do you see the words DRILL and DRILL BIT?  How bad was this poor man suffering?? 

Unfortunately, or fortunately, I'm just not sure, the right drill bit couldn't be located in the middle of the night so, an alternate method was used.  It is a little known fact, to me at least, (and thank the Dear Lord for that!) that the human thumbnail can be melted through.  Oh yes, we're going there. 

An o'dark thirty attempt was made at heating a paper clip to the point of making it able to melt through the smashed thumbnail which would release the pressure building up under said nail.  Please note, this medical procedure was preformed under the strict supervision of a trained professional in a horrendous amount of pain and should not be attempted by just any ole injured person or their gutsy spouse. 

Do you wonder that a car window in the hands of a humble, mortified pastor could cause such pain and suffering?  Did you know that the power window on a typical vehicle exerts over 80 pounds of pressure?  My Uncle John does!

Fortunately, or unfortunately, I'm still not too sure, the paper clip procedure was not successful.  Uncle John was forced to call a colleague to meet him in the training room with the tool used to perform the fingernail melt on football players who were habitually late for practice whose fingers were smashed between the shoulder pads and helmets of their own or the opposing team.  I hear that my Uncle was an example to others who received the same treatment that day. 

I dearly hope he made up some super cool incident that resulted in his injury because really, for that amount of pain one needs a better story than "My goofy niece's preacher husband rolled my thumb up in the window of his ultra-happenin' minivan."

Maybe something along the lines of, "My lovely wife was removing the most beautiful turkey you've ever seen from the oven when one of the forty-eight small children who were at our home walked in front of her.  My wife tripped and the oven-hot turkey, pan and all, went flying toward another of those little children.  I jumped over two toddlers and and infant and grabbed the roasting pan just before it hit the opposite wall, thus smashing my thumb and causing 2nd degree burns on my hand.  Happily, not one piece of turkey or one drop of the juice spilled on any of the little cherubs and we were able to enjoy the Thanksgiving meal."

I bet I know a minister who'd back Uncle John on that story!

How Do You Apologize for THAT?

We had a super Thanksgiving day. . .we arrived at my Aunt Ant (I'll explain later) and Uncle's home with three whole minutes to spare (a Wright gang record), the turkey was juicy and hot, the gravy was...

...plentiful,

and there was this ultra tasty broccoli-bacon-golden raisin-sunflower seed concoction, and our family's traditional pineapple salad/dessert.

The table was inviting and beautiful. . .

and the company...

...delightful. 

(That's my Dad in the flannel, fresh from hunting. 

Check out that hair...remind you of anyone??)

(Hint, hint)

This meal was as good as it gets and it was brought to us by. . .

...this lady (my Mom, the one behind the baby) and...

...this lady, (my Ant Sab, so spelled because when I was 5, I made a construction paper and cotton stocking for her to decorate her home with at Christmas time.  In glitter, gold I think, I carefully added the label "ANT Sab" and so forever it has been.  Every birthday card, every care package to my college address, on the wedding gift, on the baby shower gifts-s-s-s. . . has been the signature "Love, Ant Sab..."  ) and...

...THIS lady, my Grandma, who taught the other two everything they know about feeding a large hungry crowd!  Isn't she lovely?

After the meal, the adults and kids parted company for a while.  The adults to watch football and converse.  Some of the kids watched movies on an enormous television equipped with surround sound like the real theater, while others chose to ride the rides...

The gentleman above, the one showing off his skills as a grandpa (two grandsons since February!!), is my Uncle John.  He's a physical therapist.  Well, that's one of his jobs.  He also, to hear my son or my Grandma (or any of us really) tell it, plays a vital role in the success or failure of our favorite college football team.  If you know when to look, you will see him take the field during actual football games--this usually means trouble for our team, but we are always excited to see him on TV, "LOOK it's Uncle John!!" 

Happily, this year our team had a home game the day after Thanksgiving, and Uncle John was able to spend a leisurely Thanksgiving day trapped in his own home with seventeen other people, six of whom happened to be children under eleven years old.  I think I even heard that he was able to take a nap after dinner which would later prove to be a wise move...

Just as the evening was winding down and we were preparing to leave, my Uncle asked my Man and I if any of our clan would like to go to the big game the next day.  Oh the happiness of my guys.  Cole was thrilled, he'd been after his dad all week to go to that game.  This would be his first "Backyard Brawl" and he didn't care that it would be freezing or maybe raining, or both. 

 Oh, Uncle John...how can we ever thank you?

I'll tell you in the next post, but here's a hint...

Let's just say, if the poor guy had to do it all over again, he wouldn't even have invited us to Thanksgiving dinner. (Just kidding...I hope...)

Happy Thanksgiving