Happy Thanksgiving...

Look at my cute parents and my sister. Not to mention that kid! We met in Casa Grande for breakfast on Thanksgiving Day. With Dad's schedule a trip either way for dinner was impossible this year, so we hit Mimi's. I missed Susan's Baked Corn and Mom's Green Bean Bundles, though!

This kid...

LOVE, LOVE, LOVE him. He turned 13 on November 6th, and I can't think where the time has gone. I am SO thankful that this kid, my nephew, is in my life. So, in his honor, some random memories of the coolest 13 year old I know.

*The night he was born, I and my friend, Amy, went to the hospital to meet him. We took turns holding him and watched the episode of 90210 when Dylan's wife was accidentally shot by HER OWN DAD! PJ and Dylan McCay (two very cool guys) are forever linked in my mind.

*Shopping the day after Thanksgiving--I'd be the "kid watcher" while Susan and Mom shopped. PJ and I would park ourselves with a bag of chippers from Paradise Bakery and play "I Spy." He never quite got it that he was supposed to spy things that I could actually see...not some guy who went into a store, "way ova dare! "

*Asking Nana how her diarrhea is doing, when he meant to say diabetes.

*When Susan brought Lulu, their old dog, home, she said, "isn't she just the cutest thing in the whole world?" Later that night PJ cried, saying (with out "Rs" of course), "I thought I was the cutest thing in the whole world." It was that kind of crying where the kid could hardly talk.

Hope

I truly cannot believe I am seeing an event such as this in my lifetime.

Before I started teaching, before I realized what a hot mess some parents make of their kids, before I saw in my classroom the result of need, of want, of neglect, before I realized what we are doing to our environment and the simple things we can do to combat the destruction...I was a Republican.

I am ready for CHANGE, and I am feeling the elusive emotion of HOPE.