Thankful...

The day before Thanksgiving break (I got Wed-Fri off...I am thankful for my school schedule!), I wrote up on the white board in my classroom: "Thankful". I wanted to see if the students would write anything up on the board. Now, remember, a lot of the students I work with are impulsive and hyperactive, and they write things up on the board all the time. But, no one wrote anything, or even asked me about it, until one student added an "I'm" in front of my "Thankful" and a "for" after it. As soon as he wrote that, the next 5 students who came into my classroom headed straight for the white board, grabbed a marker, and started making a list. Such a good social experiment :)

These funny, goofy, crazy 14 year-olds wrote things like:

Air

Life

Pencils

Xbox

and (of course) Mrs. Woodland

So, we forgot our camera on our one day T-day trip and then we were lazy and didn't document our relaxing, Brandon studying, outlet shopping, football watching long weekend. Sorry for this non-visual post!

This is the third Thanksgiving Brandon and I have spent together, and each one gets better and better. Our first year we had just started dating, and since we were both going to be in town we decided to join in with a big group of other random people from our singles' ward who were also going to be in town. The second year we were engaged and engrossed in wedding planning (I was VERY thankful that we didn't have to think of wedding stuff this year!). We joined a dinner hosted by another couple who were dating (and now married...shout out to the Bowens), which was much cozier than the year before because we were better friends with the people we ate with. This year we celebrated our first Thanksgiving as "the Woodlands" (I am very thankful for all that that entails!) and we drove to Philly Wed night to meet up with Sean, and we had a great time being with family for Thanksgiving. Seriously, it is the best of this holiday we have had yet. (I am thankful Sean lives close enough now that we have seen each other every month since he's been here!) Just to give you a taste of how it was, let me relate one memory:

We spent Wed night at Sean's "host" family's house (he is in Philly for a year doing a pre-doctoral internship and is renting a room from an LDS family who live in a really nice suburb outside Philly). Brandon, Sean, and I spent quite a bit of time hanging out in his room visiting. I left for maybe 5 minutes to brush my teeth, etc. and I started to hear rumbling noises coming from the bedroom-- like bodies being smashed and thrown about, and Sean muttering faint "ow, awwww, ow!" noises. Yes, you guessed it, these two grown brothers were wrestling. (I am thankful Brandon can wrestle with Sean, so that he doesn't try and wrestle me as often because I hate it!)

Hope you all had a good T-day!