Thanksgiving Feast #2

What a great time we had in WV! We went to visit Andy's Nanny along with Danny, Steph & family. We went back to our old tradition of heading to Nanny's house. We got there Wednesday evening and left Saturday morning. There were 10 of us in all, which is smaller than the usual 18 (going on 19 but don't worry, it's not me!). We had a lot of fun watching the kids run around, painting acorns and rocks after finding them by the creek and oak tree, hiking after some snow had fallen- just a little but enough for Wilson to eat it off of everything, the girls headed into "town" to shop at the Dollar General (that is all there is other than Rite Aid and Foodland). We watched a couple movies and played games. It was relaxing and nice. We had a great Thanksgiving dinner too. We missed Mimi and Poppy who were on a cruise. Erin, James and family were in KY and Katie and David were is FL. As we were eating Nanny said "Now we all need to go around the table and say something we're thankful for." She shared hers and Meg said she was thankful for sweet potatoes!! Then the table fell silent as we were all thinking of the MANY things we are thankful for and how could we possibly choose just one to share when Andy hit the nail on the head. He said, I'm thankful that none of us are sick. The rest of us chorused our "me toos" and reminisced UNfondly of last Thanksgiving--the Thanksgiving from HELL. Have I told you that story? Here goes...
For the past 3 years we travelled to a camp and rented a cottage- large enough to fit all 18 of us. We'd outgrown Nanny's house and this seemed a good option. Well last year we were all looking forward to meeting up at camp. We had lots of plans- good plans- like paintball for the guys, making turkey cookies, the annual play the kids put on, playing games, relaxing, hiking etc. A few days before we left for camp Wilson caught a virus. A bad one, with throw-up and other stuff. I think I caught it next, a very mild case- but we were feeling better in time to leave and thought everything would be okay. Boy were we wrong. By the time we left the cottage on Saturday the virus had spread through I think 15 of 18 people. It. was. awful. And of course it was our family's fault so I felt a lot of guilt. We shouldn't have gone. Each day we woke up the virus had spread to at least another person. I had to take Andy to the ER because he was so dehydrated. It hit him really hard. He had to get two bags of fluid. We spent a couple hours in the emergency room. It was just a horrible time. If you know me at all you know I live for breaks from school to be home with my boys (even though I love my job!). All I kept thinking was I can't wait for this weekend to be over so I can go back to work and get out of this nightmare. It really did feel like a nightmare. Thankfully our family still speaks to us! But here is something I don't know that I've told anyone- except those that were there- the poor girl who works at the camp and went in to clean the cabin after we left- yep, you guessed it, she caught the virus from just walking in the cabin. I mean we had already done some cleaning, emptying the trash, vacuuming, cleaning all the dishes, stripping the beds etc. And she still got sick. Talk about guilt. That was one awful, nasty virus that spread like wildfire. And during the horrible nightmare we couldn't leave because people were to sick to travel. It was the longest several days of 'vacation' ever.
Thank goodness this year was so great, it really makes Thanksgiving memories seem happy again! Maybe in a few years we'll laugh about last year's virus filled Thanksgiving- the nightmare- but not yet. No, not yet.

Pictures of this Thanksgiving to come!