Happy Thanksgiving 2011 from down over here on the farm. I love the fall in the south, it is a beautiful 70*F sunny day outside (although it is supposed to be something like 24*F in a few days), and Thanksgiving pretty much always kicks off Iron Bowl weekend. If you are perhaps one of the few unfamiliar with the Iron Bowl, check out the film by ESPN called Roll Tide War Eagle. Can’t begin to list how many things I am thankful for at this point, but for one, we have Deborah at home and feeling relatively well, that trumps most other things on my list right now.
I am extremely thankful for my family, and being able to eat dinner over at my parents house today will be awesome. I took the photo of my mom and dad above this morning, but the normal traditional work is the first shot. Every year on Thanksgiving week we (generally that means my dad) mow the entire pasture for the winter.
Happy Thanksgiving everyone and War Eagle!
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Thanksgiving is now long gone (and so is the food I hope) but I finally got around to editing a few impromptu photo shoots that happened over that weekend. We often move from holiday to holiday and are “thankful” when it is time to be thankful, and “merry” when it is time for Christmas, but the spirit should remain with us year round. This past Thanksgiving weekend was a little different in our house this year. We were home and able to share the meal with our extended family and had a wonderful time. I had a photo shoot with my pastor’s family, my car died, and then on Thanksgiving day took a few shots of my Nieces and Nephews (I have several).
Christmas is going to be a bit strange for us as well as we make a move up to Virginia just before Christmas to continue our class work. It will be kind of weird being in a new place during the holiday but Deborah and I are looking forward to making new friends and worshiping with new Believers. Below are just a few shots from the Thanksgiving weekend (I am going to try to upload a few more to my flickr account). The last shot at the bottom is my Niece Martha and my Nephew Levi, quite a pair.
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Thanksgiving weekend is just about to wind down and move into the 25 day rush to Christmas. It was a nice weekend with some nice rain showers and lots of food. I just finished watching one of the more lousy versions of the Iron bowl (if you are an Auburn fan) over the last few years and it ended in an Alabama romp. Alabama played well and will have a full plate next week coming up against Florida in the SEC Championship game.
Early on Thursday I did a quick photo shoot for Dale and Larry Fillmer (that would be mom and dad) for their Christmas card. Here are a few from the shoot that were my favorites (don’t think any of these made it on the card, but these were the ones I liked). Looking forward to the new series that starts tomorrow at cumc called Simple Christmas. Something we can all take to heart, focusing on what is important at Christmas and why we celebrate the holiday in the first place, can’t wait. If you are in the Auburn area, come by at 9am or 11am and see what it’s all about.
I am really looking forward to this Christmas season and all the possibilities of the upcoming new year. I always look forward to the changing of the new year. It always seems to bring change and a new time of growth for my family, as it is with many, and I can’t wait to see what the Lord has in store for us in 2009. Celebrating a Simple Christmas is going to be a great place for my family to transition into the new year.
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Happy Thanksgiving to everyone. I am sitting here about to turn on the Macy’s Day Parade and for some reason thinking about Christmas and New Years Day and beyond. For some reason this year it seems like we have skipped over Thanksgiving and are bolting ourselves into the Christmas day time. Retail stores are probably trying desperately to bring in people early this year, and around town I started seeing Christmas displays and hearing Christmas music over the intercom before Halloween was over.
I don’t remember Christmas coming right after Halloween last year but it seems to have creeped its way farther up the calendar this year. I like Thanksgiving and would like to take one of these at a time before we go on to the next one, but I realize that Thanksgiving is not a real big commercial season and no one gives presents from Best Buy at Thanksgiving (thank goodness). If there is no commercial purpose for the holiday, it seems that most businesses, TV and radio will just skip over day now. I hate rushing through life. We rush here and there all day every day and I would like to celebrate one holiday at a time. Deb and I are not real big fans of holiday days anyway, it always disrupts the routines of everything, but I would like to enjoy one before going on to the next.
So, today being Thanksgiving I figured I would do the typical what I am thankful for post. A few things I am thankful for.
- My Savior
- My wife, family, friends
- that I have food to eat, a place to live
- I am able to live in a free country
- clean water and shoes
Those are nothing earth shattering of course, but still something I am continually aware of and thankful for. Early this week on Tuesday a friend of mine, Josh, did a great explanation of why we celebrate the Lord’s Supper, why it is important, and what was going on at the time. It was during the Passover Celebration as explained in Exodus, but when Jesus and the disciples celebrated passover supper, Jesus spoke and said:
Matthew 26: 26 While they were eating, Jesus took bread, gave thanks and broke it, and gave it to his disciples, saying, “Take and eat; this is my body.” 27 Then he took the cup, gave thanks and offered it to them, saying, “Drink from it, all of you. 28 This is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins. 29 I tell you, I will not drink of this fruit of the vine from now on until that day when I drink it anew with you in my Father’s kingdom.” 30 When they had sung a hymn, they went out to the Mount of Olives.
Jesus “gave thanks” during this celebration dinner, and today we give thanks as well. I do like to remember that this is generally an American holiday (see Thanksgiving is a U.S. Holiday, Think Global) and we should not forget that this is not a world-wide holiday. Last year, Deb and I spent the holiday on our boat (sort of) for a few hours and ended up coming back home after their wifi went down (see here). It’s a year later and we are going to spend the day here at the house with my father-in-law David, (see Deb’s mom’s blog) and watching some football.
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It’s Thanksgiving week and that means that Auburn University classes are over for the holiday break. For the last few years this week has been the time which my dad, Larry Fillmer, takes a few days off from work and gets on the John Deere tractor and cuts the pasture grass for the winter. There is around 20-30 acres of actual grass to cut, so it usually takes most of the week. Today was a bit cloudy and cold, but, it’s November. I think there are a few people in his office that read my blog so I thought I would let you know what Larry Fillmer looks like when he is not in a suit and tie on campus.
I would love to hear from those who know Larry but don’t normally comment on my blog. Can I have a caption for the photo above??
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If there is one place where the Church should be involved and actively participating is helping those who need help. I had a chance to visit the operation area of the Auburn United Methodist Church food bank on Thursday and they were preparing to give away 500 turkey dinners, 800 bags of fresh corn, milk, eggs, potatoes, and everything else you see in the boxes in the photos below.
I snapped this one shot with my phone on my way out, it was really neat to see this many meals lined up, but also a reminder of how many people were going to be here on Friday to pick up these boxes. If you ever want to help out AUMC does this every Friday, I am sure they would love to have help boxing things up even when it is not Thanksgiving.
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And, so are we. He was so happy to leave the vet doggy camp that he barked all the way home and has not moved from his bed since 9am this morning.
Blazer was at doggy camp because Scott and I took a couple of days off to go down to the boat. Blazer turns green on boats so he gets to visit doggy camp instead.
After the Thanksgiving non-event, we were ready to get back down there and hang out, if just for a few days. All of our time was not spent lounging around though. We took advantage of the 80 degree December weather phenomenon to get out to the beach and shoot some video for the upcoming knitting tutorials.
We knitted and filmed and enjoyed the completely deserted beach and just as we were finishing up the video recording for the day, the rain started falling. Heavier and heavier it fell, ushering in a cold front that would bring in incredibly strong winds that would rock the boat all night in it’s slip. Temperatures were in the 30′s the next morning when we awoke.
Unlike our previous boat, however, this boat is quite watertight and has a heater/air-conditioning unit that works beautifully. We stayed warm and dry inside all night while the wind and rocking waves lulled us to sleep. Now it is time for us to get ready to head to Dallas, TX for Christmas with my family. We are leaving in three days, which means that Blazer gets to return to doggy camp to visit with all his friends again. Since he does not have Aubie here with him any more he has become quite the cling-on and seems to need company 24/7.
Anyway, we are going to be gone about a week and hopefully we can get in some good knitting video recording while we are gone. The Civil War Shawl KAL and the Secret of the Stole II KAL have to be ready to go in January, so it looks like a working Christmas holiday on the road for us.
Have a wonderful holiday and we will see you on the flip-side.
