Happy Thanksgiving: Part 2

So Kitchener-Waterloo has a really huge German population. In fact, before WW I, Kitchener was called "Berlin." It got changed to "Kitchener" during the war but the strong German heritage remains. Therefore, we have a really big Oktoberfest celebration. So on Thanksgiving Monday morning we have the KW Oktoberfest parade. Today's parade was even more fun for me because Sam had so much fun. He waved at everyone and yelled "Happy Thanksgiving!" a lot. It was so cute :)

There are a lot of pictures but for me the highlights were watching the Oktoberfest 5km runners (maybe I'll sign up to do it next year?!?!), seeing all the food collected for the food bank, the square-dancing tractors, seeing a 22-person bike and having a fire safety trailer break down in front of us until it was rescued by a square-dancing tractor :) Plus hanging out with Tim, Janice, Tessa and Willem and some of their friends and eating a chocolate croissant.

After the parade we went to Tim and Janice's and had Thanksgiving dinner and spent the afternoon with them. Dinner was really good and the afternoon was a lot of fun. We also got to have some more in depth conversations which I really appreciated. I love that our kids play so well together and that Tessa and Willem are so patient with playing with Sam and Rachel. (And I probably say that every single time we get together with them!) And I ended up getting a new necklace too! Willem's school is selling jewelry as a fundraiser so I was thrilled to buy a necklace and support his school at the same time.

So that was our celebratory, fun and food-filled Thanksgiving weekend. It was one of the best weekends I've had in a long time. And now today it's back to reality -- doing laundry, watching my friend's 11 month old, and picking up our CSA. And depending on how the kids are doing, it may include some time with a lot of garlic... Tune in on Thursday to read all about it!