Happy Thanksgiving!

Happy Thanksgiving! This is the time of year to count our blessings and to give thanks. My life has been blessed in many ways and first and foremost are my husband and children.
I'm thankful to have such a wonderful husband, someone who is kind, considerate, a great dad and who loves me despite myself. He's always there to pick up the slack and after 20 years he's still happy to accompany me on any journey. My only request: in order to continue this bliss he must never retire and get underfoot.

In eleven years, my children have gone from this:

To this:
I'm thankful they have grown up to be good friends, thankful for their senses of humor, thankful that my daughter is a risk taker with a gentle spirit and that my son, despite struggles in grade school, has a heart of gold and has advanaced to college and is doing well. I'm thankful for what they have taught me by being their mother. I'm also thankful my son got a decent haircut a week after that photo was taken.

I'm grateful that I have good friends and that by marrying my husband, I was blessed with acquiring his sister as my friend. I'm thankful that my hobby has allowed me to meet more people and to add them to my list of friends. I'm thankful we have neighbors who are our friends. I'm thankful my mother-in-law lives 100 miles away. Don't ask...

I'm grateful I'm not an only child and that my sister and brothers are there to help with our parents who aren't doing well. When one of us gets tired, another picks up the load. I'm thankful my siblings all turned out to be adults that I enjoy and my only regret is living too far away from them.

I'm thankful to live in the United States, and no matter what problems we have,( and every country has them), I'm proud to be an American. But I'm also thankful for the opportunity to visit other countries and places.

As usual, I have more to say but will end it here. On this day of Thanksgiving let us give thanks for all our blessings.