Our Thanksgiving Blessing...

My dad is a die hard estate/garage -saler.  In recent years, I have not had much of a chance to do this myself due to the growing-UP of my kiddos, but dad is always on the look out, and with some wonderful direction from my mom, he found us the table we have been looking for, for years now.  I received an urgent text from my mama Saturday-saying "LOOK AT YOUR EMAIL"  she had sent pictures of the table my dad had found, and wanted to know if this fit what we were looking for.  Oh my, yes!!  We are a family of eight now, with no dining space in our house, so having the right table was important to us.  It needed to function in so many ways in our living room.  As you can imagine, chairs take up too much space, so we were looking for heavy duty benches.  The normal size tables were also too short.  We needed one that was at least 6 feet long and wider than normal as well.  We have also learned from trying different tables thrifted over the years, that the leg's placement can make or break the function when trying to squish a large amount of people around it.  Well, this table fit every one of those needs.  We didn't realize HOW WELL it fit our needs until we assembled it in the room last night at midnight!! 

Yesterday, we rented a trailer and all of us headed out to my folks to spend the afternoon and evening with them.  My mom is currently in surgery having her 2nd knee replacement.  I wanted to spend some quality time with her before the surgery because recouping is a very difficult and grueling process as she has already gone through one. We know now what to expect and it has been good to be a part of the preparation process this time.  I was able to do a very good cleaning out of her craft room so that when she is finally feeling up to crocheting, it is all ready for her andMatt and the kids did some furniture rearranging with my dad to have the house more open for her to get around during her therapy sessions.  We then said our goodbyes, and headed home with the new table and benches.  I was a bit nervous about it.  When you make a major purchase like this and it is such a massive piece of furniture that you have been looking for, for so long-you hope you made the right choice.  But as soon as I saw it set up and in it's place-I KNEW IT WAS!  We all kind of stood around marveling at it's function more than anything.  Funny how function in itself can be beautiful!  It will fit 12 people!!  That means we can easily add 4 guests to our family without doing a major furniture rearrange!  That means, Thanksgiving dinner, with our company will be comfortable and easy set up!  So excited for this Thanksgiving gift.
                             
My dad had talked a bit with the previous owner's children.  Their parents had passed away, and if any of the kids could have fit it in their homes, they would have in a heartbeat!  Even my folks were a bit tempted to take it themselves.  The children my dad spoke with said their parents had had this custom built when they were kids-how neat is that!  That is what we needed, but it just was not in the budget.

Originally, we had thought we may take the backs off of the benches, but we all agreed once it was in it's home-they are fabulous and will stay!  At some point, Matt and I will undertake refinishing the whole set in a darker stain(we tend to like dark wood), but the beautiful wearing of time is something I am liking. I am looking forward to this becoming an heirloom in our family and having it be the cornerstone to many memories of our adventure as a family!