A THANKSGIVING STORY

Remeber the scene in "A Christmas Story" when the family goes to a Chinese restaurant for Christmas dinner? We felt kind of like them today.

Things have been a little crazy lately so we finally decided that we were justified in taking this Thanksgiving off from the cooking and preparation, and taking advantage of the galley on base. The galley is the on-base cafeteria. Imagine the Golden Corral on a budget (and minus the really old people). That's the galley.

Despite being Thanksgiving, we sent the kids off to school. They go to Spanish schools that of course don't celebrate Thanksgiving. That gave us some peace and quiet to enjoy. Nick spent the morning on a bike ride in the rain, the cleaning lady came, and Rebecca did some things around the house.

Around noon or so we heard the sound that for the last five years has been virtually our sole connection with loved ones--- iChat (shameless plug for the Mac- if you don't have one it would make a great Christmas gift). We video conferenced with a group of friends that we have considered family for the last 3 years in Okinawa. They were gathered together for the traditional friends Thanksgiving dinner. We were flattered and even a little emotional that they would think of us even though we are now half way around the world. We had the chance to touch base with the whole group at once and introduce them to the babies. It was the next best thing to being there with them. We felt missed, and that felt good.

We then picked up the kids from school at 2 pm and we were off to the galley. The galley was an adventure. I did my best to covertly video the event. See the short clip below to get a better feel for the experience. In a nutshell, we paid $21 for the family, picked up our tray, and made our way down the "buffet" line for the traditional fixin's of roast, turkey, patatoes, ham, stuffing, and something they claimed was green beans, and discussed a mural on the wall that Jake claimed was a "half naked man peeing" (I will include the picture below for you to decide).

Rebecca didn't like any of the food much, and Caden and Max discovered they didn't like eggnog. Dad showed the kids how to make impressions of their fingers by sticking them in the molten wax from the melting candles. We drank lots of chocolate milk and finished it all off with ice cream.

We arrived hungry, left full, and didn't have to clean any dishes (unless you count the part where you have to take your lunch tray to the mysterious man in the dishwasher window).  I would say an overall success. And while it may not rank up there with our best Thanksgivings, it will surely be one of the more memorable ones.

Rebecca is finishing off the day with a midnight showing of "New Moon", leaving Nick home to try his luck at breastfeeding the twins.