This past week had a lot of highlights, but of course I have to tell you about my Thanksgiving Birthday. :-) It occurred to me to make Thanksgiving dinner for one of the houses at the Bible Home in early/mid-October and it became my dream.
I was so excited I couldn't fall asleep Wednesday night. There were some crazy things that happened, I'll elaborate on the blog, but I made it to the Nido (Nest) house and we only ate dinner an hour and a half late. The kids were so eager to help me. Alex, one of my many favorites did a great job helping with the sweet potatoes and the green beans. Ismael helped crumble bread for the stuffing and saved me some time with that too. Having helpers is wonderful and makes a huge difference! Everything turned out really well and utterly delicious. Thanksgiving has always been one of the most special days of the year for me, and that it was combined with my birthday made it superspecial! So, I made sure to spend it with some superspecial people. The substitute/foster parents in the Nido house are really sweet, loving people, the kids are some of the ones I'm closest to and my friend Fausía and her husband Andrés (who both also work at the Bible Home) have become very special people to me as well.
Of course, one of the best parts of the day was getting to talk to Mommy and Daddy. I'm getting really excited to see them for Christmas!
I hope you all had a great Thanksgiving. I am very thankful to God for each and every one of you!
Love,
Carrie
PS More pictures should be hitting facebook eventually. Don't forget to head for the blog for more Thanksgiving Birthday details!
I meant to make the pumpkin pie ahead of time. If I had, we would have probably eaten on time, or close to it. (The kids typically go to bed around 8:30, so eating at 7:30 kind of threw things off. but, it all worked out.) I went out for a birthday dinner with my friends the Jespersens on Wednesday. We had a really nice time. I got home a little later than I wanted, but was still planning to make my pie. Well, I started geting the ingredients out and -AAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHH!!! There was no powdered ginger!! I tried calling and texting Ana since she was out and near Walmart (the only place that was still open at 9pm), but to no avail. So, I planned to go on a ginger hunt as part of my bike ride on Birthday morning. However, as I was walking to the back door to get my bike, the very gray skies opened and canceled my bike ride (which I had been very much looking forward to, even before the ginger thing). So I did tae bo inside.
I couldn't go to the store right at 8 because that's when the Macy's Parade was starting, and since it had worked out for me to get the whole day off work, I REALLY wanted to carry on tradition and watch the parade. So I did. I got really nostalgic and Mommy-sick during the first part and was practically in tears the first 20 minutes, but then I recovered (and the Broadway performances weren't so moving).
I headed to the bank in Heredia for the residency renewal appointment. I needed to get some $ out of the ATM first though. Well, I didn't have enough $ left in my account here, so I needed to get money out of my account in the States. And horror of horrors, between my excitement for my afternoon/evening at the Bible home, the nostalgia of Thanksgiving, my desperate need for ginger, eagerness for my residency to be renewed, and a couple silly digits, I totally forgot my PIN!!!
I was really freaking out. And yeah, I punched in the wrong PIN enough to have them deactivate my card. But, thanks be to God, I was able to pay what I needed to with the cash I had and what was left on my Costa Rican bank card. Oh man was I scared though! Things started looking up after that. I got my ginger, came home and got my card reactivated, threw half the kitchen into the car and headed up the mountain to my beloved Bible Home.
I spent all afternoon cooking up a storm. It was wonderful. Mami Marielos (of the Jardín House) lent me her oven so I could bake other things... not much fit in with the turkey in Mami Mayela's kitchen. As I cooked, the kids made me birthday cards. Mariana made me an awesome cardboard purse with a beaded strap and lots of chocolate inside. A number of the kids even had me spell my name for them so they could write it correctly. That was nice. Carrie is not an easy name for Spanish speakers to figure out.
Mami Mayela and her son Jhon decorated everything beautifully-not in a very autumnal fashion, but lovely nonetheless. The kids were very patient about the meal, I think Papi Gerardo was the most impatient one, and that was semi-joking. The kids loved the food (and then ate off all the marshmallows from on top of the sweet potatoes, jajajaja!!). Well, everybody loved the food. I explained briefly the origins of Thanksgiving. Then, we did the Smith traditional Thanksgiving alphabet-going through the alphabet and saying what we're thankful for for each letter. I had hoped to do more traditions, but time was of the essence.
My birthday cake (which should be decorated like a turkey when my birthday falls on Turkey Day) wasn't really decorated like a turkey, but I know that was a tall order and Mami and the house helper really didn't have time for it anyway. It was 1/2 chocolate and yummy.
The pumpkin pie was too. Pumpkin pie with whipped cream! Fanny helped with that. :-) Oh and they gave me a whole bunch of sweet little presents, along with more cards and letters from the kids. So sweet!
I left the Bible Home shortly after 10 (they held the gate open for me), came home, cleaned thawed turkey nastiness out of the fridge, put the cooked turkey in the fridge and called my parents. Then I finished unpacking the car and started packing for the weekend mini-vacation at the beach with my co-workers from the office. Whew! It was a full, fun, wild and crazy day, but aside from the ginger stress and the money situation, I would re-live it in a heartbeat. One of my favorite parts was when the kids came home from school. They kind of trickled in and it was such a joy to see them come in the door and have them come and hug me. I LOVED IT!
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