Idaho Botanical Garden Season of Lights!

Happy Anniversary Marcia and Neal!

Congratulations, Matt Linden, for trying on the Mr. Mom hat! His blog is sooooo worth following. The adventures of this fine Dad while "wife" as he calls Holly (my niece) went back to work, will totally make you smile. Enjoy! www.thedawgrun.blogspot.com

Quotes of the Day!

"Let us be grateful to people who make us happy, they are the charming gardeners who make our souls blossom." ~Marcel Proust

"You can kiss your family and friends good-bye and put miles between you, but at the same time you carry them with you in your heart, your mind, your stomach, because you do not just live in a world but a world lives in you." ~Frederick Buechner

Growing as a family.....seeing one another's reality.

Yawn! It took a nap or two to compensate for the three hour time difference between Kentucky and Beaverton. I can never sleep on lay-overs in the airport....people watching is way too interesting.....and I can never sleep on the plane for fear my head will bob over on the sardine packed in next to me.....or worse yet, I will be seen slack-jawed in public with mouth wide open catching a few Zzzzzzzzzzzzs. So, I'm catching up on my beauty sleep!

Over the two week wonderful visit to see Scott, Shannon Mason and Mitchell, I wondered if children ever see their parents as real human beings....or through the lens of childhood experiences and expectations. I know it took me a loooooong time to see my own parents as real human beings with needs, experiences, hopes and dreams of their own, separate from what I thought they should be. Perhaps the reverse is true.....do parents ever see their children as real human beings separate from themselves....competent, talented, successful, loving human beings who contribute to society without your help. They don't need Mom's input anymore. Somehow in the journey we take together, we learn to know each other well....honoring the individual path, loving the memories and making more as time goes on. Family is such a schoolroom for life.....teachers and students abound!

Still thankful after all these years!

The leftovers are gone, the excess turkey soup is in the freezer, the last drop of eggnog has been downed and I am still thankful for friends and family. I've spent two weeks in Kentucky with my son Scott, his wife Shannon and two college age grandsons, Mason and Mitchell.....plus two dogs, Nellie, a beautiful blonde retriever and McKinley, a hunky chocolate lab rescued from the pound. I cannot keep up to this group......that is.....unless I take a nap. There were 29 guests for Thanksgiving dinner......friends and friends of friends. Not until a few seconds before we sat down to dinner at the "big" table did we know for sure how many were coming. Were any of the fraternity brothers that didn't go home, coming? Was anyone left out? Keisha and her kids came up from Tennessee.....I had met her many years ago in Italy when Scott and her husband flew helicopters together. Unfortunately, Paul was killed six years ago while terrorist training in the Phillipines. Military families are very bonded....so it was wonderful to rememeber the good times and catch up. We ate and laughed and played games and built bonfires and put up the Christmas village the day after Thanksgiving. The walls held much love....and we lost count how many came and went over the weekend. So, amid the mad, insanity of trampled shoppers and terrorist evil attacks, there are people that care deeply and share routinely. There is love!