Give thanks

We don't travel on the holidays for several reasons. The main reason being a simple equation:

Traveling with kids + holiday traffic = hell on earth.

But I also don't travel on holidays because for 6 years in college and 3 years after I moved south, I spent the bulk of my holidays behind the wheel of a car and I've pretty much had enough. After Gavin was born, I declared that I was done with the road rage, toll booths, and inclement weather in the Virginia mountains and I was going to make my own family traditions in and around my own home and if my family wanted to be with me, they knew where I lived.

Needless to say, husband and kids aside, I haven't spent a holiday with my family since I declared my holidays travel free. I'm cool with that. I have an adoptive family here in the south: my neighbors. I have spent every Thanksgiving, Christmas, and Easter with them for the past three years and I couldn't ask for better company. Friends, after all, are the family you get to choose.

This year, instead of Thanksgiving at my neighbor's house, we had Thanksgiving at her brother's house and it was fantastic. The food was fabulous, the wine flowed freely, and there was plenty to keep the kids occupied- namely the entire child proof-free home and a pool table. Grace also took a liking to a bowl full of nuts.

It was lovely. Simply lovely.

Child proof free home


Would it kill you to smile for a picture with your mama (by the way, note my newly colored hair... I'm thankful for it! Mostly because I did it myself and I'm glad it isn't orange and/or I'm not bald)


Nuts (gotta wait until you're two, baby girl)


Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!


She won (and dude will NOT stop bragging)


Sweet things


The pilgrims would have wanted it this way





On a much, much more serious note, someone I only briefly knew passed away this week. I still can't wrap my mind around it and the thought that someone I talked to one day being gone the next is not only far too much for me to comprehend, but also entirely too much for me- with my mediocre writing skills- to put into words.

He was only seventeen and the last words he spoke to me were "bless you".

I am blessed.

Hug your loved ones tight.