Thanksgiving-Dress-Up-Birthday-Pinata-Talent-Show

We packed as much as possible into this year's Thanksgiving and it was so much fun. I'm so thankful for the close-knit community we have here. It was wonderful to have the Wilbur and Ready families back in Tajikistan for the holidays this year as well as newcomers: a wonderful Swiss couple - Beni & Rahel, and the two home school teachers from Germany - Simone and Annabel. Our Thanksgiving is always very special and this year had to have been one of the best. It started out with Laura going from home to home in the village where they live, looking for turkeys to buy. She found some and hoisted them back to her house (well, her hen-house to be precise). We got to see the turkeys the next day (Thanksgiving Day in America) and even witness the male mating with the female (we didn't go into detail about what was happening to the kids). Upon hearing that daddy was going to return that evening and kill the turkeys, Hannah said, "I want to watch daddy kill those turkeys. That big turkey (the male) is a really bad turkey. He stood on top of the little one. Daddy should kill that bad turkey." She did accompany Rees and many of our other friends here showed up at the Wilburs for the event. Apparently the killing of the tom was rather brutal as Rees chased it with an axe, knocked it out and then be-headed it (too graphic?). He was scared of the tom turkey biting him (and thus getting another infection and having to take yet more antibiotics - after these last few months of kidney stones, surgery, stent, fevers, pain, etc, etc. I don't blame him). But thankfully Jonathan was able to calmly sneak up behind the female and just grab her so she had a more humane passing. Laura, Rees and Simone gutted and plucked the turkeys and Laura fixed up the birds for our Thanksgiving celebration.
We all gathered for our Thanksgiving celebration on Saturday (yesterday) and it was way more than just Thanksgiving. It had been Liberty's birthday this past week so we threw a birthday party into the celebration as well as a dress-up party (since we didn't do that at the end of October). The kids smashed a turkey pinata (we really have nothing against turkeys - though all the mention of violence against turkeys in this post may make you think otherwise) and between the meal and dessert, there was a talent show, emceed by Troy Ready who would be happy to sing his debut song for you about living here (to the tune of John Denver's, "Thank God I'm a Country Boy"). There was so much great food (always way way way more than the 22+ of us end up eating), lots of laughs and so much love and thankfulness, we didn't want it to end. We left for home in the snow and this morning woke up to a winter wonderland (which has now melted back down to the mud pit we live in).
I do hope that all of you had a lovely Thanksgiving as well. We thought of many of you (potentially even all of you) and are so thankful for each of you - for your support (spoken and unspoken), your love, and all the little ways in which you've encouraged and inspired us (both in the past and in the present).

We dressed up as the Berenstain Bears.

Hannah taking a turn at the turkey pinata.

The Readys had very clever costumes. Myles was a puppy, Keaton was dog bones (like the kind they chew on), Jenny was Puppy Chow, and Troy was dog poop. You'll have to check their blog to see pics of the whole fam: www.readyfam.blogspot.com.

Beni and Rahel dressed up as Apple Computers.

Troy sharing his song at the talent show.

This was just the beginning. Isn't it funny that we have appetizers right before such a large meal?