Aaron was in the hospital. I think you already know about that.
Months before, I told my brother to drive down from Idaho and spend the holiday with us. And it was a good thing that I did too because I needed someone to help me while Aaron was in the hospital.
I remember the day before Thanksgiving, I told a nurse that we were hoping to get him home soon and she said, "We'll have him home by the holidays, for sure! ....well...not THESE holidays. Not tomorrow."
This is the ONLY photo that I have of my baby bump. Sorry, Sydney...
But I wanted to look cute for the holiday since I hadn't looked cute in awhile and I thought, "Oh...while I'm not wearing sweatpants, I should take a picture."
Our food spread was a little weak. This was part of the brief period of time when Aaron COULD eat at the hospital and so we had been given permission by the hospital to bring in Thanksgiving dinner for Aaron to eat (as long as he also drank an Ensure). One rule that they were pretty strict on us following was not bringing alcohol to the hospital. That was fine since we are still REALLY Mormon.
I woke up in the morning and fixed mashed potatoes (the first time from scratch by myself) and put the turkey breast we had in the freezer (Thanks Barb!!), into our oven to cook. Some gravy and stove top stuffing from a box to round things out. It was weird cooking this wonderful meal....and then SHOVING IT into tupperware. I loaded it up into the car along with Zach and Markus and off we went to the hospital.
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| Classy....I even used my "good tupperware". |
Dad shared his cup of ice cream from the hospital fridge. What a nice dad.
Markus looking GOOOOOOOOOOOOD with his mustache.
*Funny Side Story: That picture over Markus, Aaron didn't know it was there for a week. He had a tube down his throat and couldn't turn his head. So one day when the tube was out and I was sleeping on that couch, Aaron turned to say something to me and was like, "Wow....where did that come from?" Aaron.....soooooooooooo high on morphine.
Sparkling apple cider with our Thanksgiving dinner, since we couldn't have any alcohol.
Family picture time. We wanted to get a couple pictures of our little family for the scrapbook....you know, so we could look back on these memories.
Markus was great at entertaining Zach in the hospital room. As you can imagine, this wasn't the most exciting place for Zach to be so he definitely needed someone who could throw a ball (or him) around.
If you ever wonder who Zach looks like, it's my brother Markus.
Our festivities were only occasionally interrupted with nurses needing to hook up new bags of antibiotics.
But Zach didn't mind. He was riding up and down on this recliner...much to Markus' obvious delight.
For dessert, we had this delicious coconut cream pie that my barely acquaintance then (and really great friend now!) Kim brought us.
It was an unusual Thanksgiving. But it wasn't all that bad. Aaron had morphine and food and family...and I don't think that you can get much better than that.
(Just food and family for the rest of us...since Aaron was being greedy with the morphine)
I feel like I was more thankful this Thanksgiving. It was less busy and filled with the pressure to MAKE everything and unnecessary formality and tradition. It was the simple roots of the holiday. It was sitting and saying, "Thank GOD you are alive. Thank God we are all alive. Thank God we have each other and our beautiful son. Thank God we have parents and siblings who love us and can help us and pray for us. Thank God for a good church group in Las Vegas who were willing to help us even though they don't know us. Thank God for the Air Force and for Aaron's team specifically who also cared for us and wanted to do everything they could to help us."
It was a day that we were only Thankful. So in a way, it was the best Thanksgiving.
