Early Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving came early for our family this year. We spent Sunday in Mattoon with Steve & Nan, Geoff, Sean, Dane and Katie, and many, many Roses.

Junie, Nancy's youngest sister, moved south from the Chicago area to Mattoon, in southern central Illinois. She bought a beautiful old house (built in the 1880's) in one of those tree-lined neighborhoods with brick pavement and turn of the century Victorians. I wish we'd managed to get a few pictures of her neighborhood, but I always feel like it's been a successful family get together if I manage to get one of the family. LOL...Oh, and I threatened to photoshop Dane out of the picture if he's not good to Katie.

I hadn't seen a lot of Nan's siblings in close to 20 years, so it was extra fun to discover that if you lose track of people, they apparently continue to grow older and produce children, who then manage to grow up and produce offspring of their own. All without me noticing!

Junie looked great, and her kids are incredible...friendly, intelligent, attractive...Hell, they even did her dishes! I was thinking on the drive home that at some point in the parenting cycle, you look at your kids and they're fully-formed people. I guess that's when you start to get an idea of how well you've done as a parent.

I missed having Carrie and Robbie there with us, but I gave out the address of Carrie's blog, PoorVegan.blogspot.com, to all the vegetarians and potential vegetarians in the group. So Carrie, don't feel any extra pressure or anything, but the whole world is watching you now.