Happy Thanksgiving!

Drove to Daniel's and Jennifer's for a two-day Thanksgiving retreat. I'll let the pix tell the story:

Lots of reading Wednesday night -- The Goat Lady and Make Way for Ducklings:




Then Daniel continued the nightly installment of the George MacDonald stories. These are intensely deep, complicated, and fantastical, steered by MacDonald's biblical/moral compass. The fact that the girls can follow and comprehend these stories puts them in the rarefied air of those who even know who MacDonald is, much less appreciate what he wrote. If you're not familiar with him, read just the first few paragraphs of the Wikipedia article on him to see his influence on people like J.R.R. Tolkein, C.S. Lewis, G.K. Chesterton, et al. While the girls look distracted, when Daniel would ask them questions later about what he had read, it was obvious they were listening:




The next day, Ellen read the entire Make Way for Ducklings book to me without missing a beat, and Arianna read me a chapter from one of her books. They are amazing readers:




I took my waffle maker for Belgian blueberry waffles on T'giving morning, ably assisted by Ellen and Arianna:



The tedium of waiting on the waffles was relieved by multiple helpings of the seasonal Kruidenier opiate, Silk Nog:




Chef Daniel helped prepare my contribution to the meal, a rice-eggplant-whatever dish that turned out surprisingly well:



Jen prepared an amazing vegan Thanksgiving feast: two Tofurkeys w/ dressing and gravy, her own (much better) stuffing, sage mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes topped with vegan marshallow, broccoli slaw salad, from-scratch cranberry sauce, croissant rolls, plus my rice-eggplant thing . . .









And her from-scratch apple pie for dessert (and brownies as well):



After recuperating from a wonderful meal, we took the obligatory post-feast walk in the neighborhood before tackling dessert:



Bookin' it:




Then it was time for pictures in the front yard:






















Look at this beautiful hair:




Then it was time to decorate -- while Daniel and I strung white lights on the outside of the house, Jen and the girls set up the manger scene and the Christmas village:










And a few miscellaneous shots to wrap up:

Arianna getting comfortable with Grandaddy's camera:




Daniel and girls in serious reading mode. Ellen and Arianna gave up their room for Grandaddy and camped on the playroom floor. I was happy to see their L. L. Bean sleeping bags that I gave them for Christmas a couple years ago holding up and serving well.




Here's Ellie getting in a few final pages before lights out. (Credit to Jen for this great shot.)




Thanks to DJEA for great hospitality and a good time and happy Thanksgiving. By the way, if anybody wants a copy of any of these pix (plus more that I didn't post in the blog for lack of space), just click on any picture and you'll be taken to my Flickr account where you can download various sizes of all the pix. (Click on "William Kruidenier's Photostream" to navigate away from a single picture back to a layout of all the pix, and go to succeeding pages via the arrows at the bottom of the page. Click on the picture you want, then click on the "All Sizes" icon above the picture and you'll see a download button for each size you click on.) And thanks to Jen for taking many of the pix on this page!

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Not Looking Good

Not to be an alarmist, but some analysts outside the U.S. don't think America will recover. (And who can blame them?) You can read the views of a Russian political analyst here -- he sees the U.S. being broken up into six smaller units. Granted, the Ruskies have always had an elevated opinion of their own competencies compared to others. But his views are just an example of how dire the situation looks to those who are standing at a distance and shaking their heads -- and anticipating the worst.

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