Happy Thanksgiving!
Happy Thanksgiving! I have so much to be so thankful for. And it is so nice to have a day set aside to remember how blessed we are and to spend time with family. Even though we are not with many of you. We miss you! We need UK for the 4am shopping!!
First, before the pictures, I included Lincoln's Proclomation of Thanksgiving. It is well worth the time to read. Govenor William Bradford in Plymouth Colony set aside the first Thanksgiving day as a day for thanksgiving and prayer. It was then celebrated by different states on different dates throughout the earlier history of the country. Then President Lincoln declared it a national holiday and unifed the date we set aside to give thanks.
I am so thankful that we live in a place that is not a warzone, that we have food on the table and in the stores. I am thankful for the opportunity to worship the Lord freely. I am thankful for heat, a roof over my head and my cozy bed. I am thankful for my family; all of you. I am thankful for the Lord in my life. :)
Issued, October 3, 1863
The year that is drawing towards its close has been filled with the blessings of fruitful fields and healthful skies. To these bounties, which are so constantly enjoyed that we are prone to forget the source from which they come, others have been added, which are of so extraordinary a nature, that they cannot fail to penetrate and soften even the heart which is habitually insensible to the ever watchful providence of Almighty God.
In the midst of a civil war of unequaled magnitude and severity, which has sometimes seemed to invite and provoke the aggressions of foreign States, peace has been preserved with all nations, order has been maintained, the laws have been respected and obeyed, and harmony has prevailed everywhere, except in the theater of military conflict; while that theater has been greatly contracted by the advancing armies and navies of the Union.
The needful diversions of wealth and strength from the fields of peaceful industry to the national defense have not arrested the plough, the shuttle or the ship. The axe has enlarged the borders of our settlements, and the mines, as well of iron and coal as of the precious metals, have yielded even more abundantly than heretofore. Population has steadily increased, notwithstanding the waste that has been made in the camp, the siege and the battlefield; and the country, rejoicing in the consciousness of augmented strength and vigor, is permitted to expect continuance of years with large increase of freedom.
No human counsel hath devised, nor hath any mortal hand worked out these great things. They are the gracious gifts of the Most High God, who, while dealing with us in anger for our sins, hath nevertheless remembered mercy.
It has seemed to me fit and proper that they should be solemnly, reverently and gratefully acknowledged as with one heart and voice by the whole American people; I do, therefore, invite my fellow citizens in every part of the United States, and also those who are at sea and those who are sojourning in foreign lands, to set apart and observe the last Thursday of November next as a Day of Thanksgiving and Prayer to our beneficent Father, who dwelleth in the heavens. And I recommend to them that, while offering up the ascriptions justly due to him that, for such singular deliverances and blessings; they do also, with humble penitence for our national perverseness and disobedience, commend to His tender care all those who have become widows, orphans, mourners or sufferers in the lamentable civil strife in which we are unavoidably engaged, and fervently implore the interposition of the Almighty hand to heal the wounds of the nation and to restore it, as soon as may be consistent with the Divine purposes, to the full enjoyment of peace, harmony, tranquility, and union.
In testimony whereof I have hereunto set my hand and caused the seal of the United States to be affixed.
Done at the city of Washington this third day of October, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-three, and of the independence of the United States the eighty-eighth.
Abraham Lincoln
By the President: William H. Seward, Secretary of State.
And now.... the pictures!!!
So, when your produce co-op gives you lots of lemons...make lemonade!!
We got our tree a week early this year...
Each week, a bunch of us get together and map the world. I have learned so much geography this year while leading this group!
Gotta add these beautiful wedding pictures!
Some big oak trees and lots of leaves make for big leaf piles to jump in!
Here we are at a nearby 700 acre nature camp. Atley is in a group learning about camouflage and birds!
Here she is practicing an Indian game...
The end for today... :)
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