Thanksgiving weekend 2016.Yes, you read that correctly. I was going through my draft posts, because apparently started a lot of draft posts by uploading photos to the blog, but either never wrote anything to go along with those photos, or I started, but never finished.

This was one of those posts that had all the photos in it, but no words. Since Thanksgiving 2017 is just a few weeks away, I figured why not finish this post. It is “Throwback Thursday” after all. Ha!

Last Thanksgiving was tough, like all of 2016. I had just accepted a temp job covering a maternity leave that would have me back in New Jersey after being I had been unemployed for 6 months. Toby was in clinical remission, but we knew it was a matter of time until the cancer would come back. It was the first Thanksgiving without my grandfather, and I was just miserably depressed in a bad place.

I decided I wanted to spend Thanksgiving with just me, Toby and Maddux doing what I wanted to do. Maybe it was a little selfish, but at that time, I wasn’t sure if that would be Toby’s last Thanksgiving, but if it was, I wanted it to be a lot of fun and done on our terms.

It was one of the best Thanksgiving ever, and I knowing what I know now, I am very happy we did what we did.

Thanksgiving Day was cold, very cold. But, I was determined to go for a hike. I wanted to do something fun that we all enjoyed. While Toby didn’t like to hike, he liked to do stuff and be outside. So, I put a blanket around him and put him in his sling, and put a sweater on Maddux. Off we went to a local park with a nice wooded trail. After we went by the lake and took some photos before it started raining.

The next day, we went to the Saratoga Dog Park, somewhere Toby and Maddux really enjoyed. Maddux loved running around, and so did Toby, until he got tired. When he got tired, he still loved it, because he would go sit on the picnic tables with all the people and be the center of attention. And, we all know Toby loved attention.

After the dog park, we went to a local pet store, and did a doggie version of Black Friday. I let Toby walk around and pick out a few treats and toys.

The funniest part of the weekend, however, had to be putting up the Christmas tree – something I usually leave to my Dad. Instead, I decided I was going to do it myself.

Toby just say on his bed in the living room and watched. Then, he and Maddux moved to the chair, snuggled in next to each other and watched me. This was one of those time I was very happy dogs can’t talk, because I could tell from the look on Toby’s face that he just kept thinking, “stupid human!” But, at the same time I think my stupidly must have been pretty entertaining because they kept watching me. It was sort of hilarious. Needless to say, I was having a tough time putting the tree together, It may or may not have taken me three time to get the garland correct, and don’t even get me started on the lights or what branch went where.

As it turned out, it was Toby’s last Thanksgiving, and since we had never gotten to spend it in out house upstate, I am so happy I decided to what I did and have those memories.