thanksgiving.

Life is good.
God is good.

Last week was thanksgiving and it is always such a good time
For the past few years I haven't really looked forward to it, with school and going home and wanting to see my friends there it's just a busy weekend.
Ever year it amazes me.
It is the only time that my family gets together from my moms side.
Every year family travels from California and Portland area to be together.
This year the weekend was so beautiful.

We all have our own stuff back at home but it is all erased for this weekend together.
We walk together, cook together, play games together, eat together.
My favorite part is always while we are eating dinner on Thanksgiving we go around the table and say what we are thankful for. It's a beautiful time of reflection of the last year. We spend the weekend at my grandmas and so the thanks always come back to her and my papa who passed away 17 years ago. He was my favorite. I was so young but he is my first memory. One of my aunts decided that we should go around the table and say our favorite memory of him. My heart was moved by all of the amazing things said about him. A few of my cousins were too little to remember him or weren't born yet so as one of them was saying she never met him another one of my cousins said something kind of quiet so not many people heard him, "you are getting to know him through all of this". It was so beautiful. It's so true. His life and love is shown through each of his children. I'm so thankful to be able to gather with my family and remember my papa even after 17 years.

Another wonderful part of Thanksgiving is our talent show. Every year we put together this talent show where everyone comes up with something to do the hour before the show. It's always very entertaining and rarely serious. I love that everyone participates in one way or another. The past two years the family has broken into random dance to the Mama Mia soundtrack. We dance around the table and all of our worries about the year are gone. We are just with one another, as family, as community. And my heart is full once again.