Thanksgiving in Pecos

The kids and I left for Pecos early Sunday morning; they did really well on the drive. I am so thankful for the dvd player. Right now they watch movies the entire way, but I'm looking forward to the day Robert is old enough to do something other than watch movies because 10 solid hours of movie-watching is a bit much.

We got to Pecos around 4:30 and church started at 6:00. In hindsight, having the kids sit through a service a mere two hours after being set free from the car was probably not the best idea. I won't go into specifics.

On Monday night Clara helped Bia make cupcakes for Robert's birthday. We were going to do a little combined Clara/Robert birthday celebration on Tuesday night.




We had just finished dinner on Tuesday night and were about to have cupcakes when we got the call that Uncle Jerry had died so there wasn't much celebrating that night. While Momma and Daddy went over to Myrt Myrt and Joe's house to await news, Clara and Robert got to have a cupcake before bed but we waited on gifts.

Wednesday was Robert's birthday and while we still weren't in a celebratory mood, we didn't want Robert's special day to go by without some fanfare. So Bia got some donuts for breakfast and then they opened their present afterwards.



I was originally going to leave to go back home on Saturday and later decided to leave on Friday. I guess I told everyone in my mind but forgot to actually voice the change, so Linsey had planned on coming to Pecos on Friday to see us before we left. I decided that it would probably be good to get the kids out of Momma's hair so she could make the stuff for Thanksgiving dinner the next day so I drove to Wink to hang out with Linsey for a few hours. And didn't take a single picture.

We went to church on Wednesday night. They were just having a devotional type service with no kids classes. We drove up to the building and Robert immediately knew where he was. He started thrashing in his seat yelling "NO! NO! NO! NO!" I got him to the door and then he turned around and refused to walk in. He was kicking and screaming; I was so embarrassed. I should've just turned around and left but I'm a glutton for punishment. We ended up in the cry room after a few minutes but there's no toys and you can hear if they're really yelling and there's no where to walk around really so I took him to the car to watch a movie. That'll teach to act up in church.

We had Thanksgiving dinner over at Myrt's house and it was beautiful outside that day. The kids got to play in the backyard and watch tv. Here Clara is enjoying a nice tea cake with Myrt Myrt.



And that's all the pictures I took at Thanksgiving. It was a long drive home the next day being alone with my thoughts as I drove. I usually love the fact that I have 8 hours to think on my drives to and from Pecos, but this time all I could think about was Uncle Jerry, the wreck, the funeral, Laura and John Allen and everyone else that loved him. I debated back and forth the whole drive on whether or not I should make the trip back for the funeral after my surgery. I also couldn't stop thinking about how easy it would be to have a wreck at any moment and how quickly life can change. As such, it was a much longer drive than usual and I was mentally exhausted when I finally arrived home.

I'm so glad that I was there for Thanksgiving and just wish I had been able to go back for the funeral. I teared up seeing pictures from the funeral and feel so bad that I was not there with my family. I could tell from pictures that a lot of love and respect went into the arrangements.