Life's Journey

Yesterday was Thanksgiving and I realized that while I have a lot of reasons to be angry, bitter, and sad that I instead choose to be thankful. There are so many reasons to be thankful and enjoy every moment. Life is too precious to be wasted with anger and negative energy. Live it, enjoy it!

We are in the car now driving home from our San Diego trip to spend the holiday with Roy’s family. We took the back way from Temecula through the mountain passes and Palm Springs out to the freeway to head home. It’s such a beautiful drive. As I look out the window at the mountains it makes me realize just how lucky I am to have this life. I’ve had the opportunity to see a lot of various landscapes from the shorelines of Florida, the Rocky Mountains, the plains of Texas, the Arizona desert, to the California shores, cities, and mountains. All of it is amazing and gives you a great perspective of just how grand this country is… and what a small speck each of us are within it.

Our trip was great. We spent our time with Sharon (Roy’s Mom), Aunt Susie, Grandma, Glenn (Roy’s Brother), Kelbe (his wife), and the kids: James (11), Jordan (8), Autumn (7), and Alicia (3). I’ve added photos from our trip to the photo gallery. We took the kids to Legoland. I’m a Disney girl so betraying the big mouse to go to Legoland was a tough sell for me but the park had some cool stuff and the kids had a great time. They had all these mini cities like san Francisco, Manhattan, New Orleans, etc. Those were pretty amazing. But Legos aren’t like they used to be. I remember primary colored squares and rectangles… I mean it was big time when we got ones with wheels on them! Now they make helicopters and flower gardens out of legos. It’s amazing what they can build with them now. We spent the full day at the park – I was exhausted after this, but proud of myself for hanging through it. My tummy was not as excited so I didn’t ride anything that spun or moved too fast but was able to do a few things. Spent a lot of time sitting and people watching while the crew waited in line and got on rides. Thanksgiving was a nice day. I brought some craft projects to do with the kids. We made hand print ornaments and google eye turkeys. We colored and painted while everyone else was cooking and visiting. Then the kids played outside and I took a little catnap on Roy’s shoulder on the couch.  The food was great. My favorite quote of the day… lol – makes me laugh just thinking about it… so we were sitting at the table waiting for the food to come out all the kids, me, and grandma… the kids started yelling out what they wanted: James said “I want a leg” and Autumn said “I want the wing” and Alicia (the little one) looked at me and said “I want the face”. OMG – LOL – I almost pee’d my pants she said it so excited and matter of fact. I know this story doesn’t relay nearly as well in print, but it was so adorable and funny! Overall it was a nice visit.

Roy and I are about 4 hours from home on the road – I see a nap in my very near future. Glenn and Kelbe took the kids to the zoo and the beach today. If I wasn’t so darn warn out we would’ve joined them for the day. I think a day of rest is needed. They are heading to our house tomorrow. We will spend Saturday getting stuff ready for tailgating cooking, and loading up the car. I think we will head to zoolights tomorrow night. This is a really cool event they do every year at the phoenix zoo. They set up hundreds of thousands of holiday lights around the zoo. The kids will love it and we are members of the zoo so we get some free passes. Then they are coming to the football game with us on Sunday. I’m so excited! It’s the Cardinals vs the Rams and although our team hasn’t been doing well, it’s still fun to be there in the energy of the end zone. Our seats are in the 8th row of the end zone – where are the real fans sit!  It’s a crazy, drunk, football chaos crew – I love it! And we have about 18 people that will be tailgating with us. We get there 4 hours before gametime and start tailgating. There are 2 tv’s (one for xbox Madden), two grills, 3 canopys, and a ton of fun. This week we decided to do a big holiday style meal: honey baked ham, corn casserole, yams, veggies, deviled eggs, salad, rolls, and pie! Whooey – that’s going to be fun. AND, we go into the stadium early because we get to stand on the field at the sidelines for warm up and maybe part of the game! What what! I’m so excited – big hugs to my angel that pulled this one together for me. I have a tradition since last year that I wear “pinkie” (my pink wig) to the games. Everyone in the stadium knows me as pinkie… and I’ve made it on the jumbo screen a few times So, I’ll be wearing her this weekend – I’m hard to miss if you watch the game on tv.

While it’s been a busy week… there is more fun to come. I’m thankful. Nuff said!

Sending hugs and smiles.