Thanksgiving-A Bird of a Different Feather

Thanksgiving – A Bird of a Different Feather

Thanksgiving has always been one of my favorite holidays. I cherish the traditions and time with family and friends that Thanksgiving provides. In recent years we have had the privilege of spending time with dear friends and loved ones and have begun to create a few traditions of our own. I usually fry a turkey and along with oyster stuffing, gravy, homemade ginger Grand Marnier cranberries, sweet potatoes and pumpkin pie no one goes hungry.

Another new tradition we have is to go around the dinner table and share something that we are most thankful for over the last year. This year Amy beat us to the punch by composing the note below to a few family and friends and with her permission I have reprinted it here;

Happy Thanksgiving!!!!! What are you thankful for? I'm thankful for friends, family, animals and a wonderful world that God gave us to enjoy.

We are at Glover's Reef, Belize, one of the four atolls in the Northern Hemisphere. Two days ago we went on two fun scuba dives. On the first one we went to a wall. Imagine thirty feet to two thousand feet. That's what we were experiencing. We saw massive hogfish and grouper that could have eaten me for lunch. The coral was beautiful. The arches and caves where fascinating. Also the sponges where so delicate yet gigantic, they glowed pink, purple, orange, blue, green, white, and even fuchsia. After forty minutes under the surface we went to have lunch and then take another dive. The second dive wasn't the best. My dad couldn't equalize his ears so he swam at the surface and acted as our compass, lol. But the thing that made that dive memorable was that we saw a mother and baby dolphin and the baby was suckling.

Then only yesterday we went kayak surfing. Basically you ride waves in a special kayak and fall flat on your face. It was great fun until you caught a wave then like in surfing you needed to turn your kayak away from the way the wave is pulling you. If you don't, like I said you are flat on your face. Then you have five seconds to get to your kayak and flip it over jump in and face the next wave head on. Which if you let go of the oar was pretty impossible. But when you caught a wave it was a blast. But in the end the wave owns you. If you're an adrenaline junkie you should try this!!!

Thanks for keeping in touch!!! Amy

It was a fabulous day for us but definitely a bird of a different feather. Susan and I started the day early by going snorkeling. We were looking for conch and fortune shined on us as we found 9 very large conchs. While cleaning them back on board Mima Marshall started fishing with bits of conch scraps and 9 fish later he finally quit. That's right 9 fish; two grouper, three grunts, two snapper and two porgy…all catch and release since we were inside the "no take zone". In between helping get fish off the hook for Marshall I made conch ceviche, and by lunch we had already had one of those amazing days you go cruising for.

We relaxed in the sun reading all afternoon trying to get ready for our "traditional" thanksgiving celebration. The island we are anchored off has two destination resorts located on it. One is a dive center called Off the Wall and the other a kayak adventure resort. Cully, the owner of Slickrock Adventures is a world class kayaker and was our patient and capable surf kayak instructor. He had invited us to join him and his good friends Ed and Audrey Snyder and his staff for a traditional thanksgiving meal complete with turkey, stuffing and cranberries. We eagerly accepted the invitation and brought with us a couple of pumpkin pies.

By 6:00 p.m. we were enjoying a wonderful meal compliments of Ed and Audrey who own Eddie McStiff's restaurant in Moab, Utah. We ate, played speed scrabble and even went searching for giant land crabs. Susan and I were both missing the idea of having turkey and we are so grateful for the invitation and hope to entertain Cully, Ed and Audrey in Idaho in the future.

We all went to bed tired but reminded once again of all we have to be thankful for; faith, family and friends. We trust your thanksgiving was blessed and even if it was a bird of different feather like ours you were able to enjoy the day and this wonderful season of the year.

Thankful for all our many blessings, the 4Wheelers

P.s. We have had a few people ask us if we ever get bored. We always laugh and tell them, "We do not have time to get bored there is too much to do". Oh, I forgot to tell you I did some wakeboarding as well.