Happy Thanksgiving to all of our family and friends. We’re thankful we were able to get together with others this year. We had several Thanksgiving invitations, and had to choose. In the end, we decided to go to two dinners, based on timing. Yes, we were stuffed on Thanksgiving and wished we had “stretchy pants”!

Our first stop was a supporters’ dinner for Cuenca Soup Kitchen. This is a charity that provides food for the needy in Cuenca, year-round. They currently support 750 people, which as they say, is only a small part of the need of the community. They work closely with another, more broadly based charity in the Cuenca area, the Hearts of Gold (logo middle-right).

The directors are Des Dizney (lower-left) and her husband Bill (with her in upper-left and lower-right), and have been friends of ours for years. We strongly support this effort, and would love to see you help out also. Click here to go to their donation page. $25 per month will feed a family of four to those truly in need (all families are vetted before being accepted into the program). The large teddy bear was a donation for the upcoming angel tree for kids event. The kids make a wish for shoes, clothing, toys or whatever they really want for Christmas, and the goal is to make them happy.

There was food suitable for a Thanksgiving feast plus lots of left overs, including some of the best turkey we have tasted in a long time. After being filled on turkey with all the trimmings, everybody rolled back to the food table for dessert too (left)– at least 5 different types of pies plus cookies ! Kudos to Marjorie Grillo for making 2 types of pies and her husband Frank for making the yummy stuffing.

Tables were spread throughout the home used as offices for the Hearts of Gold Foundation, where friends gathered to tell stories and reconnect after long months of COVID separation.

We were joined by Brian Quigley (lower-right) who is the US Consul General and was the guest of honor. He joined us, along with his wife, Cynthia (lower-left) and their two children. Brian talked to almost everyone in the room, and often regaled us with his stories and humor (bottom-center). We learned that Carrie Underwood’s song Stretchy Pants has gone viral, as well as stories about his career in the foreign service.

There were too many other supporters there to name, but everyone seemed to have a good time… and pleasantly stuffed.

After leaving the Cuenca Soup Kitchen dinner, we headed over to the home of Rick and Linda Berke, where we have enjoyed many meals for the past several years. Rick was the Turkey Master (lower-left), while Lin was our chef for most of the rest of the meal (upper-right). Tom and Rose (upper-middle) also joined us. It was a great time for all vaccinated adults to get together for the first big meal since COVID shook up all our schedules.