Thankful

We're spending Thanksgiving break with a group of our friends from graduate school. They have been spending Thanksgiving together for about 16 years and we have been joining in for the past seven years. We always rent a house somewhere in California, usually in the mountains or at the beach. This year we're in Big Bear Lake. It is nice to be up in the trees. Yesterday we went to Moonridge Zoo and saw some neat animals like Fishers, brown bears, a snow leopard, and others. It is a sort of wildlife rescue facility. One of the coolest things that happened while we were there. A fire engine drove by and and all of a sudden the whole wolf pack (two adult females, one adult males, and six young wolves) started howling. They kept howling for about fifteen minutes and it was the most amazing sound to hear and even to see the wolves putting their heads up high and howling. I could close my eyes and imagine that I was in the middle of some dark spruce woods in Canada somewhere in a small cabin at night listening to wolves outside. It was definitely a highlight of Thanksgiving 2009.

Here are some other highlights of Being Thankful 2009:
- the great bug hunt of 2009 (Rob's invention of an easter egg type hunt for rubber bugs)
- talking health care with the peeps
- delicious food as usual including fabulous spice cake
- the kids playing money with poker chips
- the girls learning the underarm slide at the park
- seeing our friends!!!
- Disneyland as always plus Rob, Becca, Ava, and Max (B referred to Disneyland as the seventh circle of h*ll).

And we still have two days together left!

By the way, here are some things I am thankful for:

- good friends, especially ones that I have known for more than ten years- longevity counts!
- healthy families
- fun kids, even when they are grumpy
- wild animals
- wild plants
- knitted hats
- fleece
- good wine and gin drinks