another Thanksgiving update - and this one is not a sad one!

so after the sad events of saturday night/sunday morning, jambaloney and i woke up at about 1pm. we were expected at our friends' C&G's for 4:30pm. we were tired and hurting, considered cancelling, but these people have been so welcoming and warm to us...they have accepted us as family - how could we cancel? so we dragged our tired, sorry and sad butts outside on the deck, held hands, cried, talked for about an hour and that's when we remembered - OH MY GOODNESS WE PROMISED TO MAKE BLUEBERRY MUFFINS - ARGHGHGHGHGHGH!

shrugging off all sadness and going into basic training mode - we started whipping up the blueberry muffins. you will remember that jambaloney went blueberry picking at our friends' E&D's blueberry farm which is here in our community. their blueberry bushes are huge and so are their blueberries. they paid jambaloney in blueberries so let's just say that we got tons! we are eating them regularly and there isn't a blueberry on the planet that can match these.

anyway, while jambaloney was out helping them pick them, our friends E and S told jambaloney that i should make blueberry muffins for them. when jambaloney told me, i thought that they were just kidding. but then at last week's dance it came up that i hadn't made the blueberry muffins. i asked them if they were serious and they said yes - they wanted their muffins. so i told them that we would make a batch for E&D and a batch for S&D for thanksgiving weekend.

so Operation Blueberry Muffin Making began. we were so tired. and emotionally drained. but we had been called to task and we are soldiers. the worst thing - we only have one muffin tin!!! oh crap - we had to make 2 batches in less than 2 and 1/2 hours, and shower and get ready and show up on time. i did the calculations. we would never make it on time. so i called G and told them that we would be running late. "no worries" was the reply. as always.

muffins are made. we are dressed and ready to go. we arrive late and everyone has arrived. and has been waiting for us. not a word about us being late is said. a million hugs, kisses and welcomes. the house smells divine. C has put on a beautiful spread. the adults were assigned to one table, the kids to another table (the youngest kid is 16, the rest are over 20. including B and C who are older than us but wanted to be sitting with the kids!). we were honoured that we were seated at the adults table - bahahahahahah! V, our matriarch, was assigned to sit at the head of the table. she gave her seat to jambaloney so that he could sit next to me instead of across from me. well, that and the fact that she really loves jambaloney...and he really loves her. and i love the both of them!

C and G had the turkey and all of the fixins ready for all of us. we filled our plates and then filled them again. we talked and laughed and listened to the others in the other room talking and laughing. everyone in that house was related - minus a girlfriend, a boyfriend and me and jambaloney. we couldn't tell the difference at all. these people welcomed us into their family from the first night out when we met E's son, M, who we love, we love all of her sons....but right from the get-go this family has welcomed us. as had S and D's family.

we had a great time. after everyone else had left, C and G gave us the keys to their house. they live in Dartmouth on the mainland and plan to move here full-time in 3 years. between now and then, they will work on their cottage. they need someone to do the mudding on their walls. jam and i are pretty good at that. C's brother B has been doing all of the remodelling and putting in new sub-floors and floors but they need someone to mud and asked us to do it. of course we said yes. so they handed us the keys to their house and we will mud their dining room so that they can paint it.

i feel that because we handed our keys to Jimmy and Barb 3 years ago and they took such good care of our place that we need to pay it forward and this is the right opportunity.

we had a wonderful time with our family yesterday eve/night. we love E's boys, they are such good boys and they invigorate us. we love everyone in the family and it is such a nice feeling to sit down with such a large family of people who have known each other for their entire lives, people who have only known us for less than 2 years, and yet - we felt such a part of them.

thank you C and G for inviting us, feeding us so well, making us feel so welcome and leaving us your keys and entrusting us to do a good job for you. we promise to do our best. our absolute best. your trust means the world to us...we are so grateful.