1. friends: christie and her sweet family hosted us for a traditional italian dinner on thanksgiving day (thanks to her iphone for this pic!).
2. god's creation (this is the view from the villa where we had thanksgiving festivities--including a fire. mmm my favorite)--also thankful for friends like annie who take these incredible pictures.
3. the quiet and still of the country...so refreshing after the busy city of florence
in preparation for a restful and quiet weekend, i started reading a book that had been recommended to me by a younger but wiser wonderful friend in an encouraging email she sent me just a few days after i arrived in florence back in august...little did i know upon downloading it on my new kindle for mac app (which rocks, by the way. it's my newest obsession. and it's free. boom. you can just download a book and read it on your laptop-great for us kindle-less folks!) that it is all about thanksgiving! not the holiday, but actually living a life of giving thanks (or at least it is so far).
it's called
one thousand gifts: a dare to live fully right where you are by ann voskamp.
here's a little taste:
"because how else do we accept his free gift of salvation if not with thanksgiving? thanksgiving is the evidence of our acceptance of whatever he gives. thanksgiving is the manifestation of our
yes! to his grace. thanksgiving is inherent to a true salvation experience; thanksgiving is necessary to live the well, whole,
fullest life."
"'he who sacrifices thank offerings honors me, and he prepares the way so that i may show him the salvation of god' (psalm 50:23).
thanksgiving--giving thanks in everything--prepares the way that god might show us his fullest salvation in christ."
i promise this is relevant to the things i am thankful for (and it's just an incredible book definitely worth mentioning and quoting multiple times):
4. god's grace. how quickly i forget!
5. la mia familia...oh how i miss them. especially on days like these (i.e. thanksgiving--blogging in retrospect here. oops!)
here's the whole gang looking fancy for some big important thing that happened earlier this year...that's right folks, we gained a new member! after the beautiful wedding festivities, i got my very own sister [-in-law] (and my brother got his very own wife of course, but that's not the point here...). sorry for the cheese--weddings just do this to me.
here they are (although missing said new member) in their more natural state...howling with laughter
this lovely turkey toilet was bestowed upon the ivy yard several years ago as a gift. i repeat: we did not do this ourselves!!! that would be concerning. and would definitely give tennessee a bad name...but the ivy clan does love a good prank. and i suppose we were deserving of this sign that fateful thanksgiving morning after we ourselves had previously gifted this lovely porcelain express to our dear friends the bellotts. aren't they crafty??
paper airplanes in the cove (no, we don't call them cul-de-sacs/culs-de-sac?? here...not sure why but i promise we call it a cove. it's pretty official. like, it's on the street sign. i have done some serious debating and investigations on this point). totally normal. and definitely fun at every age for the ivys.
these kids are pretty cool too, i guess...oh cousins! they're just the best. also, paxton, that shirt looks familiar...i think we may have an outfit repeater on our hands. anyway, just a bit of nostalgia setting in thinking about all the gran's-stuffing-and-homemade-roll-eating, paper-airplane-throwing, movie-watching, wii-fit-ing, and family-loving going on without me...
6. on to where i AM: i am thankful for that too! friday night was declared "friendsgiving," a feast of real, old-fashioned, traditional thanksgiving food (or at least as traditional as one can get in a foreign country just a few days after canned pumpkin is declared "out of season"--a crisis, i know)--refer back to #1. friends: so thankful to be able to celebrate a day of thanks cooking, eating, singing, and just laughing with these wonderful people.
the cooks in the kitchen
moral support
the feast! complete with elements from each of our families' thanksgiving dinners (i made mom's spinach casserole and sweet potato casserole. casserole much? fun fact: it was a few of the crew's first casserole. ever. crazy, right? don't worry, i educated them. and i think they enjoyed their casserole experience(s)! i mean, what's not to like?)
then...the moment you've all been waiting for. the pumpkin pie!!! from scratch. and i mean scratch. christie made the pie crust, amy pureed the fresh pumpkin, and annie whipped the cream. don't worry, i was there too. just making the casseroles. and then they elected me to cut the pie, which we ate warm because we were just impatient...is there like a policy on the correct temperature at which to serve pumpkin pie? if so, we weren't sure. so we dug in!
delish. yep, that's whipped cream melting off the pie.
the holiday festivities continued saturday morning, when i arose bright and early to catch the train to verona with annie! which leads me to...
7. travel: when else in my life am i going to be able to casually hop on a train (my new favorite means of transportation) in the morning and be transported to a magical city, a completely different world with it's own traditions and culture, for the day and see the setting of shakespeare's famous play romeo and juliet??? probably never.
in fair verona, where we lay our scene...it was beginning to look a lot like christmas!
our main destination in this lovely city was juliet's house (duh!)
this is in the courtyard of juliet's house (right under THE balcony)! it's one of those lucky "touch this creepy statue and something good will happen" things (europe loves these. we have seen them almost everywhere we've been. florence's is a little pig!). i have no idea what it means but everyone else was doing it so we thought we would join in! for tradition's sake.
annie on the balcony! i really wanted to recite the balcony scene from romeo and juliet for the many onlookers below but resisted to maintain my dignity (and also because i have forgotten it...we memorized it it 9th grade english. sorry, ms. kitts!). also, annie and i were conveniently matching if you couldn't tell. i promise we didn't plan it! i tend to do this accidentally with friends...
inside the house, there is a room where you can write a letter (or an e-mail...less traditional and definitely less cool. letter-writing is definitely a lost art.) to juliet! so naturally, we did. and then there's the wall of graffiti and gum in the entryway to the house.
then we wandered the streets and hiked up to the top of that hill to get a view of the city! then we got some chocolate covered strawberries, naturally
then it was off to the amphitheater! so beautiful.
after seeing the city, i sat with annie for a while in a nearby park and we talked about life and watched the sun set over the city and the people live life around us. and i was thankful. i was cold and very underdressed for below-freezing weather and had to say "no, mi dispiace" to multiple gypsies, but i was overcome with thanksgiving. for a week of firsts (i.e. first fire of the season, first time cooking an entire thanksgiving meal ourselves, first casserole tastings, first thanksgiving with friends), a week of memories i will never forget, a week of friends, food, and fellowship, and most of all a week of thanks to the one who has given everything.
"oh give thanks to the LORD, for he is good,
for his steadfast love endures forever!
let the redeemed of the LORD say so,
whom he has redeemed from trouble
and gathered in from the lands,
from the east and from the west,
from the north and from the south."
-psalm 107:1-3
