Thanksgiving 2012

This year my thankful list might be longer than years past. I think the greatest blessing this year was being able to spend Thanksgiving with my family here in the US. The past 2 years I have celebrated with my cousins while I was living in Australia, but it was just never quite like an "American" thanksgiving celebration. This year the hubby and I traveled to Branson, Missouri with my parents to enjoy our mini holiday by the lake. Now, I have not been to Branson since I was maybe 5 or 6 and I had no memory of what Branson would be like so it was a surprise for the hubby and myself! Branson had been described to me as a "country" Las Vegas, I think I would add tacky into that description, nevertheless we enjoyed our time there. We visited the outlet malls, did some sightseeing, ate a lot of yummy food, and spent some time relaxing around our lakeside condo in our pj's! I think one of my favorite things we did was visited Silver Dollar City, which is a theme park in Branson. Most of my theme park experience was from several visits to Disney World, so this certainly different, but it was so much fun. The park was decorated from top to bottom with Christmas lights and decorations. We saw 2 shows while we were there and when we came out of the 2nd one the sun had set and the park looked beautiful with all the Christmas lights! Not only was the park all decked out for Christmas, but ALL of Branson was decorated! 

On Thursday, Thanksgiving day we traveled to my aunt, uncle and memar's (my grandmother) house about 100 miles from Branson to spend Thanksgiving with them. It was great to see them and spend time with them. It was the first time Ben had gotten to meet my cousins and get to spend more time with some of my extended family. We ate and ate and ate. It was all so yummy! Then we played some scrabble, a Smart family favorite! The day went by way too quickly, but I'm so thankful we were able to spend it with family. 

Overall our short and sweet 'holiday' was just what we needed. I'm not going to lie I'm not excited about my alarm going off oh so early tomorrow morning and heading back to work. Just four more weeks and Christmas break will be here!

I'm really trying to get better about taking pictures. We haven't had a camera in over a year and I've been terrible at taking photos with my phone and really terrible at taking photos of us! I didn't really even know this until I started getting photos and things together for our interview with Immigration for Ben's green card. We had all of this stuff put together when we did mine in Australia but thats been over a year ago now so I need to fill in the gaps! So here are a few photos from our trip...I did actually take more but they haven't made it from the phone to the computer yet! 

the hubby and I at a scenic spot on hwy 65

at Silver Dollar City...braving the 40 degree temps!

I hope everyone had a blessed and restful thanksgiving spent with family and friends.

November update

 One day I will have time to keep up with my blog, but just to warn you I don't see that day happening until maybe June or July. My plate is FULL right now, but I wouldn't have it any other way. Besides work, adjusting to our new life, and sorting out immigration stuff...grad school is taking up most of my time. I'm really enjoying it though, so I guess thats good, right? I'll just be thankful next summer when my classes are over and I can feel like I have some "free time" again, although I'm sure by then something us will be going on. My grad program is all online, which is a new thing for me. I'm thankful I don't have to sit in classes several nights a week, but that just means I really have to force myself to do it on my own. I'm thankful for the opportunity to take graduate classes and further my education and for a supportive husband who encourages me to do so as well. I'm also very thankful to live in a country where higher education is encouraged and appreciated because I know it doesn't work like that in other countries.

We are still in the middle of our immigration journey, now in the US for my sweet hubby. We've sent off all of our paperwork and he had his biometrix (fancy word for getting finger printed) last week, so now we wait for our interview. Hopefully that should happen in the next 2 months and we should have our decision! I'm so thankful this process has been much shorter than when we did it in Oz for me, and I feel like its been less stressful! I told my hubby the other day that my new years resolution for 2013 is to not have to "deal" with anything "immigration" for either Australia or the US. I already know that won't happen because we'll have to do a 2 year follow up, but either way I know I will feel a huge sigh of relief when we get his green card because we will both be permanent residents in each others countries and that is HUGE because this has been something we've been dealing with for over a year and a half! I can finally see the light at the end of the tunnel!

I can't believe we've been in the US for exactly 4 months today! We have had a crazy, awesome adventure so far! I also can't believe its November. The last 4 months have flown by. We get to celebrate my 28th (yikes!) birthday and Thanksgiving this month! And Christmas will be here just around the corner. I'm already itching to put up our Christmas tree and decorations. My hubby laughs at me, but I CANNOT wait! I haven't gotten to put up my Christmas tree in 3 years! And we haven't gotten to have our own tree yet, so I'm just a little excited. Oh, and there will be Christmas cards! Which my hubby tells me all of this is "very American"....well he married an American! If you want to be on our Christmas card list, let me know!

Alright, enough procrastinating for me. I need to change all of our clocks, thank you daylight savings...this is the only time of year that I regret having a 'wall of clocks' as a design feature in our apartment. And I really should be working on my paper for grad school before we head to church. Hope everyone is having a wonderful, thankful November!