Thanksgiving - Blogabond

We are writing this entry on our way to the UK... hope it gets done before we land on London grounds so we can move on to new stuff...

The following are photographs from our day trip to Destin – a prime beach city to the East of Pensacola, Florida. On the way, we passed by Panama City Beach which is famous for being a favourite of college students on Spring Breaks. Apparently, the residents are not very keen on these crowd of spring breakers because of the havoc they sometimes cause.

... yeah, you can say it... 'to the world!'

white as snow... it's sand.

some ceremony that day - naval museum

Manong Tom being a Navy Veteran meant a visit to the US National Naval Museum in town. Driving to the place, we learned about the vast land area that the US Navy holds possession of, and not just some piece of land. It’ a spread of coastal land with beautiful sugar white beaches much like Pensacola beach. In the museum, Kanootz & Cousin Grace went on a Blue Angels simulator ride.

blue angels simulator

They seem to have enjoyed that.Joia’s favourite in the museum is the part where they exhibited homes and actual living conditions during the war times. Our visit was also quite special in that there was some kind of naval ceremony going on at the time. There were bunches of naval choir singers singing beautifully, and Joia watched a US Naval flag ceremony while Kanootz explored some more battle ships and fighter planes.

blue angels pilot wannabes

they actually showered in those days? haha! naval museum

kanootz' dream ride... Naval museum

The following day – Sabbath, we couldn’t go to church as the nearest one is about 30 - 45 minutes away and we knew Manong Tom & Cousin Grace were busy with preparations for their fund raising later in the evening. Cuz Grace leads a youth group and they organized some party to raise funds so some needy families could have a proper thanksgiving meal this coming week. We spent the day walking around their 4 acre property to collect leaves, twigs, berries and dry grass to decorate some hats for their harvest party.

joia's handmade autumn hats

After the walk, we gathered the hats, the stuff we collected, along with some glue & strings and we sat by the pool under the warm sun shine. We spent the rest of the day singing our favorite praise songs, chatting about our home church and the people there and just having a quiet restful day altogether.

mr. scarecrow

In the evening, we helped decorate their church hall. The party was a success! Many people bought more tickets from the front door. All in all, they were able to raise money for 6 families at the least (their goal was to raise only for 1 family). We were very impressed with how their community – though small it may be, all came together to support their youth. There really was a spirit of unity in there.

get down and boogie! - go Ms. Grace!

It was a tiring evening but a really rewarding one, especially for Cousin Grace. We were very proud of her that night. To celebrate and congratulate her, Manong Tom shouted us to some more Krispy Kreme later that night. We must have eaten 2 dozens between the 4 of us, and then took home some more. The donut store had a somewhat theatrical setting so customers could see how the donuts are made from start to finish. Exciting! Haha!

the life story of a krispy kreme...

Sunday was parting time again. We hate saying goodbye… we really suck at it! Even saying goodbye to Boolinzky and the other cats, and the goats and the dogs was very very difficult. Still, saying farewell to Manong Tom & Cuz Grace at the airport was much more unbearable. Especially, knowing how very well looked after we have been by them and then to go from here to London, it meant we had to go back to skimping as we’re about to live back on our own means again – and we really haven’t much. Waaaaa! But such is the life of travelers, and we willingly bear it... Pensacola has been a very very unexpected surprise to us and a very very pleasant experience that we will always go back to – at least in our minds, until we can afford to go visit again.

naked trees

written by

garcia on November 18, 2007 from Charlotte, United States

from the travel blog: Got 2 see what's out there!

tagged Thanksgiving

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Charlotte, United States

Heading South?