Thanksgiving Recap: Ready for the Unexpected

His Plans Not Ours

We normally stay home or travel to family member's homes to thank the Lord and celebrate Thanksgiving together. This time we thought we could do something different especially since we lived overseas.

After praying and considering about it, we had signed up early for the Thanksgiving event sponsored by the Guam USO. We were looking forward to going there and being a blessing to those military members who were without family here.

While for the most part, we as a group were all far away from our loved ones in the states and elsewhere, we were encouraged that we had each other.

When we arrived there on time the place was packed and parking was hard to find. Groups of people lined up, signed in, and went inside only to come back out within minutes if not less.

It was our turn. We got our hands stamped and were ready to go inside the main room. Tim tried to secure a table with some of the children while I waited. Then he came back out. He said that the room was filled to the doors and people were also standing inside.

So we joined other groups of families and singles outside in the hallway. We also saw some people that we knew who were days away from flying out to another job location.

The wait wasn't that bad. We went to the lobby and sat and spent time with each other. They were running late and encouraged us to go downstairs to the dessert section.

We did go downstairs and the desserts looked delicious but we wanted to hold off for food first lest we feel sick. By the time we went back to the lobby area our little baby was ready for his meal time --- a good nursing.

It was getting pretty late and we had some other sweet children who were getting hungry. No one was sure exactly when they'd start eating, so we came up with a Plan B. Tim made some phone calls and checked around for prices and availability.

It didn't have to be a Thanksgiving meal and we were thankful to eat anything. Because of food allergy issues and budget constraints, we went to our good fallback place --- Hyatt Regency Guam's Lounge.

Lunch or Dinner

Hyatt was serving their beautiful Thanksgiving meal in their restaurant La Mirenda. A few guests might have used the Lounge as a spill over area from the restaurant because of the dishes they were eating.

They were very busy and so we waited a while to be served. It was fine with us especially since we were thankful to be able to eat anywhere that would serve us without prior reservations.

We ordered our favorite Angus burgers and changed the fries to our usual salad with Japanese dressing or balsamic vinaigrette dressing and changed the white buns to our usual wheat or multi-grain bread slices. It was nice to use our discount card to get an additional savings but it has also been great that they've given an automatic discount to military personnel.

As usual, many Hyatt staff members came over to greet us and find out if we were being assisted especially our favorite chef --- Executive Chef Josef Budde.

The waitress gave us a complimentary basket of wheat dinner rolls. Chef Budde and one of the food managers asked us if we would like some pizza from their Italian restaurant Al Dente and we said, "Sure!"

The food was delicious and the atmosphere was light and calming. Then one of the restaurant staff members surprised us with some dessert plates of their specialty desserts that day from the hotel. The children enjoyed taking a bite of some special treats and they certainly made our family feel special.

Even though we had planned on trying to take our own family photo with our tripod, we were so glad that our waitress offered to take one of us together.

Afterwards we went on a walk with the children to their garden area and fish pools. It was a nice time to get fresh air.

Before we left we were able to share some tracts from Living Waters with one of the wait staff and they loved it.

Is it Really Him?

As we were driving back home, we passed some beautiful ocean waves and sunlight hitting the sand and water. I took some pictures and we proceeded to drive.

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p id="yui_3_10_1_1_1388803386515_128926">Then we saw a man walking with his caribou on the side of the road.