After a very busy week last week, we took a field trip to the Liendo Plantation on Saturday for their annual Civil War Weekend.  It was quite an event.  There were Confederate and Union soldiers everywhere, people from all walks of life in period costumes, demonstrations of Civil War era activities like spinning (no not on bikes...), making butter, weaving, making corn husk dolls and camp cooking.  There were examples and demonstrations of era music, medicine (complete with chopped up dummies), dentistry, surgery, furniture making, blacksmithing and more.  Of course there were lots of horses (the Calvary's comin', the Calvary's comin'), weapons and cannons.  We went with dear friends and met my mom and sister and nephews there.  Us womenfolk loved the "stuff"...my mom even made a doll for her collection...the men...oh who knows what they were doing (mostly paying for "stuff"), the teenage boys enjoyed the weapons and battle while the younguns played on trees (you know...the huge hundred year old oaks that the good Lord just made for climbing...).  At one point during the 'battle" I asked the 8 year old (who was the primary reason for the trip) why he wasn't interested in the battle and was climbing trees.....his comment was "ah mom, I hate wars and killing...it hurts my heart"....ouch-he had a point...this is the one that worries every day about his sister in the Navy.  The youngest boy spent much of his time trying to take down all the tents.......

After the ennactment we all went our separate ways.  We went to my mom's home for an early Thanksgiving which was nice.  Deep fried turkey....yum.  It was all good.  Sunday we went to Mass and then to the cemetary to see Parker's headstone.  It was precious...like him.  Sunday was hard on our Isaac: he got his hand smushed in a screen door, later, Cameron was trying to occupy him while we loaded up the car by giving him a piggy back ride.....Cameron tripped and Isaac went soaring over his head right onto the driveway.  He tore up his little face and ended up with a bump the size of a baseball on his forehead.  Then after we got home and were heading to bed, he tripped and stubbed his toes.  Yeah, it was a Tylenol night.....he survived and has the scabs to prove it!  Thank heavens picture day is past!!

Cameron and I spent yesterday and today getting all of his schoolwork done.  Tomorrow, we're having another Thanksgiving feast at a dear friends house.  Those of us using the Catholic Mosaic program are having a feast.  Since Catholic Mosaic is a living book program, we will be having a Thanksgiving Ceremony which is read.  The book gets passed around the entire table with everyone taking a turn reading the ceremony.  It's called The Thanksgiving Ceremony (well duh).  I picked it up for a couple of dollars last year and I'm looking forward to using it this year.

Thursday we'll have one of my brother-in-laws here and one of Alex's friends.  We've decided to have a Thanksgiving "dinner" as opposed to lunch which is tradition in his family and mine.  That way I can spend the day cooking at my lesiure-serving "football food" for lunch.  Then we'll have dinner AFTER the Dallas Cowboy game is over....I didn't want to compete for my menfolk's attention (I'll be the only female in a house with 6 football driven fellows-yes, even the 2 year old will be in there....I'll be either in the kitchen or in my bedroom doing something decidedly feminine like knitting or cross-stitching).

We haven't been here at home for Thanksgiving for a very long time.  This should be interesting.....