Happy Thanksgiving!!

It’s been a busy but great week this week with the Bedford Family!  Shelley, Robert, and their 8 children drove down on Sunday night and arrived early Monday morning!  We had a busy week ahead and found a good balance of “busy” and “down time” together!

Monday Shelley and I went for an afternoon grocery run after finalizing a ‘menu’ for the week for our families. The rest of the day the kids played and enjoyed getting to know the ‘new’ kids since our families last gathered together 3 years ago!

Tuesday morning Michael had to work, and Robert, Jakob (their oldest son), and Kristopher went to the War Bird Air Museum for the morning.  In the afternoon, Shelley and I took Emmett and Delaina to IKEA for some wandering and shopping in Orlando!  We left the men home alone to do dinner for the kids two nights in a row and they did great .

Wednesday was an out-of-town day for us all as we headed over to Downtown Disney to walk the shops after a picnic lunch at a WINDY park on the river.  We did the fast-food thing on the way home.

Thursday was Thanksgiving so the day started early to get the Turkey in the oven and all the side dishes going!  We had a huge lunch together with our 17 children and the 4 adults!  In the evening we had several visitors stop in including friends of Shelley and Robert who they haven’t seen in 7 years!  At one point we had 10 adults and 21 children in the house.  BUSY but fun!  The Bedfords’ friends stayed for leftovers for dinner and we all enjoyed their visit .

Friday was a bright and beautiful day again. Robert and Jakob went to the Police Hall of Fame in the morning then we all gathered our crews all together to go to the Hidden Acres Farm to visit Mrs. Patti Bryan who runs Walk on Water Ministries for some HORSE fun!  She knew we wouldn’t be able to make it to our usual Saturday horse riding so she offered to come out on Friday afternoon for our family to ride and also donated free pony rides for all of the Bedfords!  What a FUN time we all had!!  Two of Shelley’s children (she also has 5 adopted children, all with Down syndrome, and three biological “typically developing” children) ride horses on a regular basis for therapy, but the others rarely have an opportunity to ride.  It was a great ending to a WONDERFUL week with friends!

We brought pizza and home-made “snowman” cookies that the kids decorated (nutter butters dipped in white chocolate and decorated), and drinks out to the farm to feed all of our crew and the volunteers.  Horses, outdoors, friends, pizza, and cookies… FUN!

Friday night we turned on 2 showers and raced to the finish line!  We managed to shower 13 children in just under 15 minutes! LOL  After the farm there was no avoiding a shower for everyone!!  Then it was time for packing up their things and putting their car together so they could pull out early this morning.  A late-night “goodbye” and an early wake-up call to finish up and see them off, and the Bedfords probably just now are arriving home.

Time to enjoy our weekend, get our crew back in their routines, help Kristopher make some progress on his school project, and get ready for the week ahead!