Happy Thanksgiving

Lord of all, to thee we raise

This our hymn of grateful praise

Folliott S. Pierpoint

Happy Thanksgiving one and all.

I am writing from a dimly lit hotel room in downtown San Diego where I couldn't sleep as long as I wanted to.  My body doesn't know it's on vacation.

A vacation is truly what I needed though.

I have felt some anxiety about leaving everything behind, but at the same time, it feels like an enormous blessing to leave everything behind.  If I were home, I'd be spending lots of time preparing Thanksgiving dinner and then I'd spend lots of time getting ready for Christmas and I might even end up at my classroom.

Instead, I'm in San Diego and I can't do any of it.

We left early yesterday morning and apparently the two gingers decided to dress in uniform:

A few days ago, I was talking to Mark about girls and I asked him if he was going to marry as well as Braeden did.  He said, "I don't know if anyone can marry that well."

I said, "Well try!"

Surely Anna's not the last good girl out there.

We had really good weather the whole trip, considering the ominous forecast.  It was super windy which didn't bode well for our gas mileage but we had dry roads until, ironically, we hit the Mojave Desert and then we had rain.

Mark and Braeden kept us in music and we listened for a bit to The Shrink Next Door which is a crazy podcast Mark and I have already listened to but we're happy to go again.

We talked to Emma on the phone after she was done with work.  We miss that girl.  She'll be home in a few weeks which is something that makes me grin every time I think about it.

At "The Biggest Chevron in the World," just past Las Vegas, we stopped for a bathroom break.  Adam bought the boys White Castle burgers--do you call them burgers?--for the cultural experience.  So nasty.  Braeden and Anna danced a bit, like you do.

I taught them the game Marianne and I made up in a truck stop once where you have to pick what you would buy on each shelf.

Today we have plans to go and explore and it remains to be seen what Thanksgiving dinner will be.  Weirdly, I have zero relatives in San Diego and this is my third Thanksgiving here.  (The first two were with my extended Jaynes family on trips hosted by my wonderful grandma.)

I have a lot to be thankful for and I love Thanksgiving which reminds me to pause and remember.

Happy Thanksgiving!