A Happy Thanksgiving!

We had a great Thanksgiving Day! It was Inna and Vitali's first Thanksgiving ever and they seemed to enjoy the day. Grant has tried to fill them in on what happens on each holiday, but I am sure it is hard to remember all these new things at once, so I got tickled the night before when I heard Inna having a conversation that sounded like this:

Inna: Vitali, tomorrow is Thanksgiving and we get candy.
(then, lots of cheering from Inna and Vitali).

Mom: Actually, hate to be the bearer of bad news, but that is the Fall Festival where you get candy.

Inna: Oh Vitali, tomorrow is Thanksgiving and we are going to get presents.
(Again more cheering from Inna and Vitali)

Mom: Ummm...sorry, but actually, that is Christmas :)

Inna: Huh, then what do we do on Thanksgiving?

Mom: Well, we get to eat a special dinner with our family and it is a day to give thanks, etc....

Inna & Vitali cheer again, but not quite as enthusiatic as before :)

We did have a great lunch and have had left overs twice since then :) Grant checked out a book from his library at school of the story of the Pilgrims and the 1st Thanksgiving and he wanted to read it to us all that morning and then, we all went around and told things we are thankful for and prayed together. It was a great start to our day!

Then, later in the day the kids talked us into going to see the movie "Bolt", which was another first for Inna and Vitali as they had never been to a movie theatre before! They loved it and it was a great first movie to take them to! At times I amazed as I try to wrap my mind around what it must feel like for them to experience these things for the first time, especially for Vitali who had never been outside the 4 walls of his orphanage until 6 months ago. It is really an eye opener of all the things that we take for granted and never notice or the things that we have become numb to because we see everyday...they notice EVERYTHING and if you have been around them for 2 minutes or more, you already know that they touch EVERYTHING they can get their hands on. Inna watched the movie intensely and Vitali was very vocal throughout taking on every emotion as if he was in the movie himself. He loves vehicles of any type, so if there was a car that crashed or turned over, he would scream out, "OH NO, IT'S BROKEN"!!!! I couldn't help but to think back to our first month or so home when he was just getting used to riding in a car and would scream and duck everytime a truck would go by us on the road and now, he LOVES for trucks to go by, especially school buses.

Hope you had a GREAT Thanksgiving Day too!!!