What Do You Say?

To say that it was a different kind of Thanksgiving for us this year is an enormous understatement. The most glaring difference was celebrating a holiday not recognized by the country we live in. Life in Singapore was business as usual unless you happen to bleed red, white, and blue. Kids were still in school, most of our husbands still had to work, nothing was closed, and the grocery stores were no more busy than a normal day. There was no Black Friday hype and we had to wait until Friday morning to watch the Cowboys and Aggies play. If you can call what the Cowboys did as "playing", but that's an entirely different post.

We had plans on Thursday to get together with several other families in our building along with some new friends from Houston.

We had reserved the area by our pool for our dinner....a dinner we ordered from the American Club so there was no major cooking required. 5:00 rolled around and the heavens opened up requiring us to move to Plan B. Our neighbors, Don and Anne, were gracious enough to open up their apartment for our feast.

No big deal? Considering there were 12 boys 11 years old and under, it was extremely gracious of them.

We piled into their apartment, decided to eat in shifts, piled the food everywhere there was space and proceeded to celebrate Thanksgiving.

We kinda made it around the kid's table with a "what are you thankful for" kind of discussion that never went deeper than being grateful for brownies and Nerf dart guns.

The parents managed a prayer of Thanksgiving and an uninterrupted meal which is miraculous in and of itself!

Friday we had plans to have dinner with my friends, Tiffany and Lisa, and our families. Tiffany and Lisa made most of the food......I threw on an apron and brought a couple of appetizers and the fixings for mashed potatoes and tried to blend in with the Martha Stewart girls.

We may or may not have had one small towel casualty.....but we did learn a valuable lesson in how to quickly put out a small fire!

We could have fed a small country with as much food as we had. This picture is a snapshot of the appetizers only. There was A LOT of food.

It was an all afternoon/evening affair with kids running between the pool and Wii with stops in the kitchen to check on our progress.

Tiffany's husband smoked the turkeys on his grill and it was hands down the best turkey I've ever had. It was decadant and wonderful meal.....we all rolled out of there completely sick which means it was a successful Thanksgiving.

Yesterday we sat in church as the pastor, whom we've come to adore, spoke on the story in Luke where Jesus healed the 10 lepers. He healed them from a disease that had kept them out of society and away from their family and friends for years. He gave them back their lives and only one returned to thank Him. One. We were reminded of all the blessings we are given and how often we forget to thank the giver of those gifts. Our pastor encouraged us to not only remember to be thankful to God for all He has given us.....and we are ALL so very blessed, but to remember to thank the people in your life that have impacted you.

I sat in the pew and cried. Big 'ol tears just rolled down my face. I am so thankful to God for so much. For my salvation. For His neverending mercy and grace. For being a very big God that cares about the smallest of details. It reminded me of all the years I have looked at my boys when they've received even the smallest of treats and said, "What do you say?". I felt exactly like that. Like my eyes had been opened to all that I had to be thankful for here in Singapore and God was saying, "What do you say?".

I'm very thankful for the people in our lives here. The new friends that have taken us under their wing, have helped us with the boys, have hung around during my often unpleasant mood swings. The friends that have skipped all the silly stuff and gotten right to the nitty gritty with me, knowing that in many cases we only have a year or two to be in each other's lives before we go back to our previous lives. The friends that have opened up my eyes to life all over this planet. Friends that have taken a chance on me.

In my moments of missing all those that are precious to me back home, I don't for a minute want to overlook the blessing of those put into my life right here.

As for you back home, and you know who you are, thank you. I am spoiled in the amount of love and support all of you have given me. I am thankful that you have been willing to go on this journey with me. I am a very, very blessed girl and don't want any of you to ever think I've taken you for granted.

Be thankful. Be thankful and tell Him. Family and friends are a gift. They give us our lives back when we think we've lost them and they make life worth living wherever you are. I am so incredibly thankful for each and every one of you.

We are now looking ahead to Christmas which is a holiday Singapore does big. I love all the lights and trees everywhere. I found my box of Christmas decor that I happened to throw into our shipment and was so excited to see that I had packed our stockings and some of our favorite decorations. It doesn't look exactly the same, but it still feels really good. My favorite is my view out my kitchen window. It makes me smile and that's a good thing.