Thankful Wrap-Up

Well, we made it back to Urbana this afternoon. It was a wonderful, relaxing Thanksgiving break. Now, we just have 3 weeks until we head back to Texas for Christmas! :)

I really enjoyed focusing on thankfulness this month, and I think it did help me appreciate the holiday in a deeper way. I'll wrap up the last few days of thankfulness in this one post (since I don't seem to do too well at posting everyday).

I'm thankful for:

• Being able to see Darby's brother Jeff and his wife and two sons. We don't see them very often, so it was nice to be able to spend some time together. Darby's nephews, Josh and Joey, just adore him, and it's fun to see him play with them.
• Darby's grandpa, Elmer. He came down to Waco for a couple of days, so we were able to talk with him some. He is 90 years old but seems much younger. He goes on trips all the time with an LCU alumni group. I got to see pictures from his most recent trips to Philadelphia/Niagara Falls and Alaska. He is such an interesting person, and I really hope Darby inherits his genes so he'll live to at least 90. :)
  3 generations of Hewitt men

• My wonderful high school girlfriends. I had coffee with Jessica and Whitney on Friday night. I love that we are able to maintain our friendship even though we don't see or even talk to each other all that often. It's so nice to catch up on each others' lives, but I really appreciate that we can move beyond small talk and share stories about the difficulty of making friends, the challenges of supporting significant others through grad school, and post-college job disillusionment. That makes it sound like we're all really depressed people; we're not! It's just nice to have people that you know you can be open with. Hopefully, I'll be able to see Krista and Stephanie at Christmas.
• The news that my cousin Amy is expecting her first baby in June! For her whole life, Amy has dreamed of being a mom. She used to carry around Matt like a baby when he was far too old to be carried. I'm so excited for her and her husband, Matthew, and I can't wait to have a new little frousin around!
• Being able to see our friend Jon, who just returned from Marine boot camp, tonight. He's been gone for 16 weeks and will be gone off and on for the next few months, then he and Katy will move to Massachusetts for 7 months, and then who knows where. :( I'm so glad we made it back in time to see him and hear about some of his boot camp experiences. I know he and Katy are going to do great things wherever they end up, but we sure will miss them here.

Since I tried to be timely with my Thanksgiving posts, there are some things I didn't mention. I'm thankful for all of my extended family: my Grandma Katherine, my aunts, uncles, and cousins. I'm thankful for our church family and all of our friends. I'm thankful for our health and our financial security. I think it's wonderful that I have too many things to be thankful for; I can't get to them all in one month!

Of course, I could write for pages about how thankful I am for my family and Darby's family. Every time we go home, we are reminded of how truly blessed we are. We love spending time with our families. And, even though I mentioned him once before, I feel like I should emphasize how incredibly grateful I am for Darby. I may be biased, but I'm pretty sure he's the best husband in the world.