Two celebrations
We celebrated our first Thanksgiving here in Belize this November. Our missionary friends, Dwayne and Linda Abernathy invited us, along with 4 of their neighbors over. One of the neighbors, Nancy, was able to find a nice turkey which she cooked up for us. It was so moist and yummy. We also got to meet some neighbors we had not need before, Jim and Becky. I’m going to try to post some pictures of our Thanksgiving day, but we have been having trouble getting pictures on our blog, so we’ll hold our breath and see.
We had all the traditional trimmings, green bean casserole, mashed potatoes, etc. The only thing we were missing was cranberry sauce. Nancy, the other neighbor that was there, did prepare some, but accidentally left it on her kitchen table. Now Nancy loves cranberry sauce, so we are suspicious about her claim to have “accidentally” left it at home. Every time she smiled for the next couple of days, her tongue was a suspicious shade of pink. You will have to come to your own conclusion.
Cranberry sauce excluded, it was a very nice day.
December 6th we received a phone call from Craigs mom. As soon as he heard her voice he knew something must be very wrong. We were correct. Craigs father, James, had just died. He had been battling bone cancer for four years and had been on Hospic for two years, so we were not terribly surprised. We began to make arrangements to return to the states so that we could attend the funeral.
James passed on Wednesday, the 6th, and we arrived at the states on Friday night, the 8th. This gave us a little time to be with the family and help them prepare for the funeral. My niece, Hillary, had all of us over to her house to go through pictures so that we could put up picture collages at the funeral home. It was really nice going through all those old pictures and sharing so many memories together. I think it was really good for my mother in law, Joan, to have all of us around her during this time.
So many people came to the viewing at Sawyer-Fuller home in Berkeley, Michigan. Many people from my home church, Faith Apostolic Church of Troy were there. Hopefully below you can see a picture of my granddaughter, Alexandra, two of the young ladies from our church, Rochelle and Alexis. Also, many people from my in laws home church, St.Davids, were there.
My father in law was in the Navy, so we were able to give him a Military funeral. When Taps was played, I turned around and saw my nephew, Nathan, who is in the Army, standing tall and proud, saluting his grandfather. It was so beautiful and brought tears to my eyes. Both of my nephews have served overseas in the Armed forces and we are so grateful for their sacrifice to keep us free and safe.
They followed in their grandfathers footsteps and we are proud of them.
We had a sad day yesterday. We are staying at our friends house, the Abernathys, to watch their 3 dogs while they are home in the states for the holidays with family. We had been out for a while and when we came home, we found one of the dogs, Dave, had died.
Dave was a rescue dog that the Abernathys took in several months ago. He was very old, blind and had tumors on 2 legs. The Abernathys patched him up and took good care of him during the time he had left. Dave was a fairly large dog, so Craig went to the restaurant, The Lost Reef, next door to our house to see if he could get some help moving and burying him. The owner, John, a two other kind men from the neighborhood came over to help him move and bury the body. The other 2 dogs that Abernathys have, Enya and Sam seemed to know what was going on, as they both seemed subdued and sad.
I hope we can get pictures on this blog. If we can’t please be patient. We are working on it.
God Bless you dear friends.
Carolyn McKenzie
We had all the traditional trimmings, green bean casserole, mashed potatoes, etc. The only thing we were missing was cranberry sauce. Nancy, the other neighbor that was there, did prepare some, but accidentally left it on her kitchen table. Now Nancy loves cranberry sauce, so we are suspicious about her claim to have “accidentally” left it at home. Every time she smiled for the next couple of days, her tongue was a suspicious shade of pink. You will have to come to your own conclusion.
Cranberry sauce excluded, it was a very nice day.
December 6th we received a phone call from Craigs mom. As soon as he heard her voice he knew something must be very wrong. We were correct. Craigs father, James, had just died. He had been battling bone cancer for four years and had been on Hospic for two years, so we were not terribly surprised. We began to make arrangements to return to the states so that we could attend the funeral.
James passed on Wednesday, the 6th, and we arrived at the states on Friday night, the 8th. This gave us a little time to be with the family and help them prepare for the funeral. My niece, Hillary, had all of us over to her house to go through pictures so that we could put up picture collages at the funeral home. It was really nice going through all those old pictures and sharing so many memories together. I think it was really good for my mother in law, Joan, to have all of us around her during this time.
So many people came to the viewing at Sawyer-Fuller home in Berkeley, Michigan. Many people from my home church, Faith Apostolic Church of Troy were there. Hopefully below you can see a picture of my granddaughter, Alexandra, two of the young ladies from our church, Rochelle and Alexis. Also, many people from my in laws home church, St.Davids, were there.
My father in law was in the Navy, so we were able to give him a Military funeral. When Taps was played, I turned around and saw my nephew, Nathan, who is in the Army, standing tall and proud, saluting his grandfather. It was so beautiful and brought tears to my eyes. Both of my nephews have served overseas in the Armed forces and we are so grateful for their sacrifice to keep us free and safe.
They followed in their grandfathers footsteps and we are proud of them.
We had a sad day yesterday. We are staying at our friends house, the Abernathys, to watch their 3 dogs while they are home in the states for the holidays with family. We had been out for a while and when we came home, we found one of the dogs, Dave, had died.
Dave was a rescue dog that the Abernathys took in several months ago. He was very old, blind and had tumors on 2 legs. The Abernathys patched him up and took good care of him during the time he had left. Dave was a fairly large dog, so Craig went to the restaurant, The Lost Reef, next door to our house to see if he could get some help moving and burying him. The owner, John, a two other kind men from the neighborhood came over to help him move and bury the body. The other 2 dogs that Abernathys have, Enya and Sam seemed to know what was going on, as they both seemed subdued and sad.
I hope we can get pictures on this blog. If we can’t please be patient. We are working on it.
God Bless you dear friends.
Carolyn McKenzie
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