What a difference a year makes. Last Thanksgiving we were living in a 4 bedroom house, having our kids and grandkids over for dinner, and thoroughly enjoying Mike's favorite holiday. That is, until Mike broke his face on my landscaping bricks.
I remember him worrying that he "ruined" Thanksgiving. I reassured him, he had not. I also said, "just think, next year we'll look back and say - Remember when you broke your face last year?" Well, it's next year, and yeah, just wow!
Since then we bought an RV, sold or gave away around 90% of our belongings including 2 vehicles and a house.
But you all know this. What you may not realize, even if you follow this blog regularly is that since we left NH in August we have traveled through 16 states and stayed at least 1 night in 12 of them. Not bad when you consider the fact that we are newbies at this full time RVing thing.
While Mike was grilling his wings and cornish game hens today, all of those things were running through my mind. I was also thinking about all the Thanksgivings that Mike and I have shared over the years. The loud ones with my siblings, the charitable ones with Heidi, the one at Mike's dad's that turned out to be his last. All of them are special in their own right. But looking back, my favorite ones were the ones with our kids and grandkids, and this is my most treasured one for a couple reasons;
This is the Thanksgiving when all of our Grands slept over the night before. We took this photo the next morning, and I remember asking at one point; "Are you guys going to get dressed"? and one of them asked "Do we have to"? To which I replied- feeling like the coolest gram ever; "Absolutely not"! The other reason is because this photo was one where our grands put up with me and my sappy side. You see, this is a "time elapse" so-to-speak. The first time they all sat in this order, on our bar was Halloween at least 6 years earlier.
There are many things we are thankful for, but nothing more so than these kids, and the kids that came before them.
We may not be together this year, but I am truly thankful for the life we are living now, and we wouldn't change a thing. The hope is to inspire these faces to follow their dreams and NEVER settle.
We will continue on this adventure looking forward to the time when we see them again.... Until then Be well, Be happy and Safe travels!