Sunrise, Sunset

Every year we make the drive over to Cory's grandparent's house on the St. John's River for Thanksgiving. It is seriously one of the most beautiful places I've ever been. 

We get there Wednesday night, and eat dinner and hang out until everyone falls asleep. I'm always one of the first to go. And these days I don't even have a chance. I'm out like a light around 8:30 every night. The bonus to this is I'm up early. I love the quiet mornings.

I peeked out the back window when I got up, and couldn't resist this amazing sunrise.

I slipped on my shoes, and walked through the wet grass to the little citrus grove on the side of the house. I found some nice juicy oranges, and sat on the dock while the sun rose. 

 It was one of those moments that make you say, "Seriously? Is this my life right now? Because I am in love with it."  It was the perfect start to Thanksgiving. How can you be anything but grateful when you're watching a perfect sunrise, sitting on a peaceful dock, eating an orange you just picked from a tree?

The icing on the seriouslyitcan'tgetanybetterthanthis cake: I didn't throw those oranges up. A Thanksgiving miracle!

Then everyone woke up, and we started the traditional peeling, boiling, mashing, and roasting. The parade was on, and we watched it. We looked up black Friday sales.We braided each other's hair. Oh Thanksgiving. You are so great.

 We ate our Thanksgiving feasts (Cory's family always serves it up buffet style, and uses these disposable lunch trays...clean up is a BREEZE. Keep your fine china, place settings, and centerpieces thank you very much. This is the perfect way to feed 25 people.).

They live on a wild life refuge, and everyone kept seeing all this crazy wildlife. Wild turkeys, sand hill cranes, fox tail squirrels, etc. After lunch and a nice nap, Cory took me for a walk so I could see these crazy animals.

This is the most exotic thing we found:

Yea. I guess we missed the crazy animal train. But he did show me this Indian Mound they used to play on as kids. Apparently before the road was paved you could just find pieces of Indian pottery all over the place. Aunt Keri and Uncle Neil used to buy arrowheads, hide them in the road, and tell the kids, "Ohh look over here! I think you might find something really neat!" And the kids would come running.

When we got back from our walk, the sun was going down, and we found grandpa fishing with some of his girls. It was a little bittersweet this year without Great Grandma Kathleen to keep us company on the dock, and show us all how to really fish.

Anyway, that's how I watched a sunrise and a sunset from the very same place. 

And then we drove home with a broken radio, so we had no choice but to tell each other stories for a few hours. It was a good Thanksgiving.