2

Thanksgiving!

We just got home from Julie's parents' place, where we went for dinner and family time.  Even though we do see them every week, it still is really nice to be able to spend Thanksgiving with family.  And today, Dale was there, too, which is always good.  He's an odd duck, as some might say, but he's great.

Now I'm just waiting for Tristan to go to sleep.  He's upstairs, likely trying to decide if it's worth it to really try to stay up late.  He's really tired, though, and that has to win out before too long.  Today, we hung glow-in-the-dark stars up in his room.  He seemed to like it enough at the time, but when we got back home tonight and went into his room and turned off the lights, he just sat down and said, "whoa."  Pretty funny guy, that boy.  His second-best pal, Hippo, had some reconstructive surgery performed on his arm today (small tear repaired), but he seems to be recovering well.  He just has to get adequate rest and stay off his feet a little while.

I do want to say how grateful I am for Julie.  I'm not sure where she went to get this, but she seems to have been endowed with some sort of superhuman Momma-ing ability.  It's incredible to see.  I'm not sure where this all came from, if she was carrying it around with her all her life and only needed it once we had kids, or if it just manifested itself sometime during her first pregnancy, but either way, it's a good thing.

We have the two most amazing kids in the world.  There's no way to argue otherwise.  Even right now, when Tristan is struggling to go to sleep, he's amazing.  Lucy isn't doing much struggling.  She's actually doing no struggling at all.  That girl is just figuring out the finer points to how her body works, but she's a very quick learner.  They're both quite a bit too smart for my good, but I think I'll have to try to keep up.

Mars Hill is wonderful.  It honestly feels like there are entire series in which the messages were specifically written for me, for what I need to hear, for what I'm thinking about, struggling with, or needing a new perspective on.  And now we very recently learned that Rob is leaving, but it doesn't seem to be affecting things adversely.  It's a very strong community, but I thought there'd be a bit more tension.  God has really stepped into this place and this community and held everyone together by reminding us that it's Him we're trying to see.

I'm not thinking well at the moment; I feel like my thoughts are very scattered.  Maybe I'll pick this back up in a little bit, but I'll end this post for now.