Thursday, November 22, 2007

Happy Thanksgiving

We are enjoying a peaceful Thanksgiving today with our whole family all together. That is something we don't take for granted anymore and it is something we are so thankful for. I think we have a new appreciation for the five of us being in one place at the same time. Even though this has been a tough year, we have a lot to be thankful for. Going through an experience like this has shown us what wonderful friends and family we have that have been such a saving grace to us.

We are so thankful to everyone who has been there for us and then some. We wouldn't be getting through this as well as we are without our friends and family helping us so much.
We are thankful to everyone we know and a lot of you we don't know who are praying for Kelly. Thank you so much and keep it coming.
We are thankful for all of Kelly's wonderful doctors and nurses at CHOC who take such good care of her and make her feel so comfortable.
We are thankful that Kelly feels as good as she does.

We hope everyone has a wonderful Thanksgiving today with family and friends.

Love,
Kathy, Kevin, Kelly, Megan and Shannon

17 comments:

Unknown said...

Happy Thanksgiving Laude Family! God Bless you're day and we're looking forward to many more! We're here praying for you!! Gobble Gobble! Eat lots of good food! :)
love,
The Nicolosi Family

Tracy said...

Happy Thanksgiving! Enjoy your peaceful & yummy day all together!! We're sending prayers of thanks your way for all of you!
Love to all of you!
Tracy, Tom, Emily & Jake

Anonymous said...

Happy Thanksgiving Kevin,Kathy,Kelly, Megan and Shannon! Have a wonderful day together!

God Bless you all!

Big Hugs,
Charmaine and family

Anonymous said...

Hello wonderful Laude Family!

Happy Thanksgiving! Thank you for being such great friends. Your message is so sweet and full of love. Being together as a family is so precious. Enjoy!

Love and hugs,
Laurie and Mark

Anonymous said...

HAPPY THANKSGIVING
Hope you are having a great thanksgiving. This is the one day a year you can just feel free to pig out. I hope to see you soon, so if you are feeling well don't hesitate to give me a call. I got to get to my tofu turkey now(hahaha)!

Love,
Becksky(=

Aunt Jenny & Uncle Bob, Kylie and Ryan ie & Ryan said...

Happy Thanksgiving to all of you!!

Lots of love,

Jen, Bob, Kylie and Ryan

Aunt Denise said...

Dear Family,
We are all thankful for you all too. I hope your Thanksgiving was a happy one. When I spoke to Kevin and Megan yesterday the feast hadn't started yet. I understand today is filled with holiday decorating. Which I guess is up to 6 boxes of decorations?
All love from New Jersey
Aunt Denise, Nana, and Poppie

Anonymous said...

Hi Kelly,

Here's a riddle for you as you digest your turkey.

As I was walking to St. Ives, I met a man with 7 wives. Each wife had 7 sacks. Each sack held 7 cats. Each cat had 7 kits (kittens). Kits, cats, sacks, wives. How many were walking to St. Ives?

Did you get it? Here's the trick. Everyone grabs for a calculator (or at least a pencil and piece of paper)to try to add up all those 7's, but none of that's necessary. The answer's in the first line. As I was walking to St. Ives, I met (coming the other way) a man with etc., etc. So, the answer is: ONE!

Henry Jackson
(See how many people you can drive nuts!)

Unknown said...

Hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving Laudes! Have fun decorating the Christmas tree. :)

Warmly,
Mollie Fry
(Pacific Symphony)

Anonymous said...

Hi Kelly,

I'm told you are a moose's best friend, so maybe you'll like this story. My parents, sister, and I were in Nova Scotia on vacation. We had spent the day in Halifax (dinner, shopping, and a show), and Dad was driving us back to Lower Five Islands, where we stayed. Lower Five Islands is 102 miles from Haliax, and it was about 1 o'clock in the morning. (I never claimed we were sane. Please bear that in mind).

So, there we were, tooling along Nova Scotia's old Route 2, a narrow, twisty, blacktop road, virtually every inch of which my father knew, fortunately. We were coming into Great Village, where the road makes a ninety degree bend. You've got to take it slow, or you wind up in the Great Village firehouse (some people have). Dad was about half way through the turn when a huge creature decided to take a leisurely stroll across the road. Dad was able to stop in time, but we both said: "What was that?" It had no antlers, but it did have a prominent nose, and it was huge. We finally figured out it was a moose, probably a cow. We got back to Lower Five Islands, and the moose got wherever it was going, all without incident.

Take care,
Henry Jackson

Anonymous said...

Hi Kelly,

I'm back with another Lower Five Islands, moose-related story. My family got to know a man in Lower Five Islands named Jim Phinney. He had a boat and he did some fishing; he also did some logging, and in the summer, he would take people to Moose Island for the day. (With a name like Moose Island, it's got to be nice, right?).

Anyway, he was logging in the woods one time, about the time of year the moose drop their antlers, and there, on the ground, he saw a beautiful rack of moose antlers. He thought the antlers would look nice in his living room, so he decided to bring them home. He put them over both shoulders and started to walk. The trees were so dense, he couldn't get through. Then, he put the antlers over one shoulder. No luck. He held them out in front of himself, tilting them first this way, then that way, in the hope of avoiding the trees. Nothing doing. Finally, he just dropped them on the forest floor, but he always wondered how the moose got through the woods with those antlers on his head.

Best wishes,
Henry Jackson

Anonymous said...

Thank you Laude family for reminding us what life is all about. So glad that Kelly is feeling fairly decent through all of this. She is a testament to all that life should be!

Jacquie

Anonymous said...

Hi Kelly,

I sent you an e-mail a few days ago in which I said I would tell you the story of the returning gold coin. Lately, I've had mixed luck with my e-mails. Sometimes they make it, and sometimes they don't.

Anyway, here's the story, and it is true. During the 1971-72 academic year, I was an exchange student at the University of Freiburg, in southwestern Germany. Christmas was coming, and I decided to go to Vienna for Christmas break. I had a great time going to concerts, plays, museums, and sight-seeing. The only thing I wanted to see but couldn't was the Lippizaner stallions. Most of them were sick with the 'flu, so all performances were canceled.

One day, I went to the Zentralsparkasse (Central Savings Bank)to change some money, and I found they had the perfect souvenir of Vienna. They sold small gold coins with Emperor Franz Josef on the front and the Hapsburg arms on the back. The coins all bore the date 1916. The lady behind the couner told me that the Austrian government saved the dies from 1916. The coins could have been made a week or a year earlier. There was no way of knowing, but they were REAL GOLD. And, at the time, gold was relatively cheap. The coins cost about $5. I thought, "Great." It was inexpensive, small (about the size of a nickel), light weight, and very cool.

So, I bought one, and the lady packed it in a plastic bag with the bank's logo on it.

Now, fast forward about ten years. By that time, I was teaching at a private school in Tarrytown, New York, and translating part-time, and I was married.

Summers were difficult, because there were no paychecks from the school. We had the rent, car payment, phone bill, and light bill covered, but we needed money for groceries, and the people I had done some translations for were late with the money. So, I dug out my gold coin (I called him Franz). I gave Franz to my wife and told her to go to a coin shop and sell him. She got $40 for Franz--enough for a bag of groceries. Then, the check for the translations came in. I told my wife to buy Franz back if she could. She did. He was in his plastic envelope with the bank's logo on it and everything. About a month later, we were in the same pickle. My wife took Franz back to the coin shop. This time, she got $60 for him, and got even more groceries. Another check for translations came in, so she bought Franz back again. Just before Labor Day, the story repeated itself once more, except my wife got $80 for Franz. Unfortunately, we never did get old Franz back that time. I sort of miss him.

So, that's the story of the returning gold coin. I hope you enjoyed it, and I hope you're having a good day. It's nice and sunny here today.

Sincerely,
Henry Jackson

Anonymous said...

Hi Kelly,

Have you ever heard of going fishing with a horse and cart? That's how they do it in Lower Five Islands, Nova Scotia, on the Bay of Fundy. They have the highest tides in the world there, and when the tide goes out, it goes out 50 feet or more and stays out for nearly 12 hours. What the fishermen do is fell a bunch of fir trees, wait until the tide goes out, then construct something called a weir. Essentially, that's like a woven fence made out of the fir trees fir trees. If they're lucky, one weir will last a season. If not, they may have to reconstruct the weir 2 or 3 times, and that's hard work. When the tide comes in, the fish get stuck in the gaps. Then, when the tide goes out, the fisheran drives his horse and cart out to the weir, and picks the fish out of it. We know one of these fishermen. His name is Gerald Lewis. He has big rubber tires on his cart, so it won't get stuck in the mud, and he puts the fish into 2 large gray plastic tubs. It takes him 45 minutes to an hour to clean out the weir, then he points the horse toward shore, and off they go to the market.

Those high tides are incredible, and they're SO QUIET. Fortunately, you can tell when the tides are beginning to come in. The breezes shift toward the shore.

I know there's some on-line info about the islands, if you're interested. I'll look it up on Google and you can have a look for yourself.

It's a warm, cloudy, misty day here. I hope your day is better.

Sincerely,
Henry Jackson

Anonymous said...

Hi Kelly,

You can get an idea of the Five Islands (though it's NOT my favorite view) at http://parks.gov.ns.ca/parks/5islands.html. The large island is Moose Island.

Happy exploring!

Henry Jackson

Anonymous said...

hey kelly!
it was nice to see you and megan and your mom at the mall the other day, even though it was just for a minute. you look great! I hope you all had a good thanksgiving! say hi to everyone over there for me! luv ya and praying for you lots.
<3christina

Aunt Jenny & Uncle Bob, Kylie and Ryan ie & Ryan said...

Hi Kelly,

I thought of you often throughout the day and hope your treatment went ok.

We have managed to get most of our Christmas decorations up this past weekend. We need to work on outside lights and putting away a few more bins!

I've told Uncle Bob to slow down on his texting! Not sure if he'll listen though! :)

Love to all,

Aunt Jenny, Uncle Bob, Kylie and Ryan