A week to be thankful!

Last week was Thanksgiving ... a tradition celebrated here as a public holiday and long weekend ... with everyone having Thursday and Friday off work! We were invited to spend the afternoon on Thursday at the Schwartz's along with the Schuerman's and Gettle's ... 18 of us in all ... and enjoyed all the trimmings of a Thanksgiving feast! There was a lot of pumpkin going on too ... pumpkin pie, pumpkin roll, pumpkin cheesecake!! It was lovely to spend time with 3 American families that day, to get a better idea of how to celebrate! The holiday also gave us time to reflect on all we've had to be thankful for over recent months!

As a result of Thanksgiving, Mark only had three days in the hangar, above you can see some the riveting he was doing on the repair plate of the right wing of the aircraft his team is working on. He also took the first of many tests required as part of his course (one every 10 days!!) ... it was on aircraft drawings ... something he is very familiar with having been an aircraft design engineer since 1994 ... and we're pleased to report he got 90%! His next test is on Thursday, this time the topic is mathematics.

Some of our extra spare time over the last week was spent sorting out the remaining two areas of the house, the office and the basement. Last weekend Mark (& Abigail) had fun putting together our new desk ... not sure who had more fun though ... see the cheeky monkey above ... already quite handy with a screwdriver! Needless to say a lot of it was done when Abigail was sleeping!! We also had time to go and have fun at the playground of the local school ... it came as a surprise to us that if it's outside of school hours you can go and play in most schools playgrounds ... as you can see Abigail is as interested in climbing up the slide as much as going down them!

We took Abigail for her MMR jab last week (a little bit late ... but we were moving when it was due!) ... a very strange experience for us as we were at the doctors surgery for over an hour ... but hardly saw anyone in that time ... and then left without having to pay anything!! Anyway, it went as well as it could and Abigail has so far been unaffected which we are very grateful for! She's very proud of herself at mealtimes now, as we can hand over both the spoon and the yoghurt pot and she can do it all with very little help ... it takes a while and doesn't all go in ... but it's fun to watch the concentration!

We are beginning to get to know some of the people at the Tabernacle now that we've been going more regularly. They have their small groups on a Sunday evening and on the fifth Sunday they have a week off and share food together. This weekend they did something a bit different and had some games as well ... we all went along and had some fun, as well as getting a chance to meet some more of the congregation!