Highlights from Thanksgiving
Our Thanksgiving trip to the mountains was fabulous on so many levels. Mostly because we left "life" behind at our house and escaped from all our responsibilities and demands. Lily was feeling pretty good that week, too, so she was able to keep up with her brothers in the pool and in the snow. It's always hard going on vacation because our family feels so conspicuous. I don't feel that way at home. I guess when we're in our own town keeping to our own routine I don't feel as sensitive to people's stares and questions. But when we're away from home, I'm hyper-sensitive to it. It doesn't help that my kids were the only children of color within a 45 mile radius. The only African American we saw that week was our waitress, which is not exactly what I'm looking for in regards to diversity. But my kids get trophies for adapting to their environment, sticking together, and shrugging off long glances and stares. When you become a conspicuous-looking family, you sign up for a lifetime of being under a microscope. I'm not complaining about it, because we chose this. You do get tired, though, of the same personal questions from strangers over and over and over again. Is it bad that I hope one of these days one of my kids will just pipe up and say, "Shut up!" to the next person that asks if they're siblings?

Watching the kids play.

Lily comes down the sledding hill. 

My kids in a blizzard at the inner tubing hill. You can barely make it out in the background. It was ffffrrreeeezing, but they totally rocked it anyway.

A whole week of this view. Good therapy indeed.