Thanksgiving '11

We spent a long Thanksgiving vacation at my in-laws' again this year. It was, as always, wonderful.

One of the highlights for me was watching my father-in-law, who admittedly isn't a "baby person," fall in love with my baby. He said there's just something special about this one, and I tend to agree.

(My baby is particularly sweet.)

Baby's first plane ride. Baby is teething, and had his fist shoved in his mouth like so for most of the trip.

Another highlight was watching J also bond with his Pop Pop. They have a lot of fun together.

And Grandma, aunts, uncles, cousins, all adoring my kids and my kids adoring all of them. Ah, family.

Other bests:

Hearing J mention the cousins' dog in his prayers. (He's very thankful for any animal time he gets.)

Mexican food and In-n-Out also rank up there. (Always with the overeating.)

Seeing my sister-in-law seem relaxed and content as a newlywed. Loved that.

Meeting up with some old friends.

Sunny days, warm walks, the train park.

Another virtually perfect trip west. Even the flight didn't seem so bad (though my memory's not so good these days, and it's easy to say that in hindsight).

Also, taking time once again to look around and see how much I have to be thankful for.

In short: A whole bunch of stuff.