Thanksgiving

For Thanksgiving this year we went to my sister Vivian's house in California. We left at around 6:30 pm Wednesday evening and the drive is about 6 1/2 hours long. We always dread the long drive but it went by surprisingly fast and the kids slept most of the drive. Whenever we do these long driving trips I always wish I had a super fancy SUV with GPS, personal DVD players, iPod docking station, etc. Maybe some day, right? Although, I think back to the days when I was a kid on those long family drives and I remember some good times on the road, maybe without the DVD players, iPods, etc there's more time for talking & playing games. I remember my sister and I would use a cassette tape to record the sound of our favorite movies, Princess Bride & Clue, and listen to the audio of the movie in the back of the station wagon. To this day, I can still remember every line in both of those movies (and I bet my sister Emily can too)! Anyways, we had a great Thanksgiving weekend with both the Amato family & the Richardson family. We spent Thanksgiving at my sister Vivian's house and most of the Amato siblings were there. We ate lots of yummy food (and my yams that I made from a recipe from my sister Shelley were a huge hit!) and visited and had a great time. We played a classic family game of Monopoly, which is always very, um, interesting and entertaining. I think just about every year there is a argument about the rules, someone gets upset about something, and somehow there is usually some sort of religious discussion as well (how religion makes its way into Monopoly I don't know, but somehow it always does). In my Amato family we have someone from just about every religious persuasion out there, I think all we need is a Buddhist and an atheist and we would have it covered, which always makes for entertaining coversations! Kellin had a great time with his cousins Annie & Mac finding worms in the backyard and pretenting to eat them. Ethan also enjoyed the worms, I think he might have actually eaten one. All I know is I walked outside to see him with a muddy face & hands, chewing on something! yum-o, protien!!


Cousin Annie, Ethan, Cousin Mac & Kellin "eating" worms.


On Friday evening we went down to San Clemente to visit my sister Shelley, her family, my mom & dad and my brother Jeff. We took the kids down to the beach and let them play along the shore looking for seashells and splashing in the (freezing) waves. Ethan had a great time playing in the sand & getting all dirty - he is such a boys boy!



On Saturday night we took the kids roller skating with my sister Vivian & her family, my sister Kathy & her family, and my niece Ashley. It was like, totally so fun! I wished I had an awesome pair of tube socks or some awesome bell bottoms on. They let us push the stroller around so we all took turns pushing Ethan around the rink, playing tag, and trying to show Kellin how to skate. Kade got tagged by someone and reached forward to tag someone else and totally biffed it hard! It was so funny! haha!

On Sunday morning we went down to my sister Joyce's house and rented a duffy, which is a little boat that cruises around the harbor. It was such a nice day and Newport harbor was beautiful with some freakin' nice houses and yahts!

We decided to stay an extra day and drive home on Monday rather than Sunday and so we had the chance to see my brother David on Monday (he is a firefighter and was working all weekend) and took the kids to the park to play. Kellin had so much fun with his cousins and we got to celebrate David's birthday with them.


Cousin Becky, Kellin & Kade racing down the slide. Cousin Daniel & Ethan on the swings.

We had a great Thanksgiving weekend and we felt so, so blessed to get to see so much family and felt so loved by everyone. Sometimes it can be hard for me to have two families in a way, being adopted and still being involved with my birth family, but this weekend showed me what a blessing it is to have both families. I am so lucky to have so many people in my life that love & support me. I am also so grateful to both families for being so supportive of me being involved in each family. There have been times in my life where I have wished that I could have just grown up in a normal family but this weekend helped me to be more grateful for the blessing I have to have been adopted by a great family that supports me having a relationship with my birth family. I love you all and am so grateful for your love and support!