This year for Thanksgiving, we're visiting family in North Carolina. It's hard living far away from family, so holidays are always special. For now, we're doing the alternating holidays, so it's Christmas in Texas and then New Years again in North Carolina. My parents made the trip from WV to see my brother and sister-in-law, and their almost two year old son, and then we all traveled over to a house on Ocean Isle Beach. For the big meal, we had a wonderful meal with all the familiar foods, turkey, ham, sweet potatoes, cranberry jelly, stuffing, green bean casserole, mashed potatoes (I've been the designated potato-masher for the past few years) and gravy, with pumpkin and fruit pies for dessert.

It's amazing to see our nephew growing up. He already knows his colors, shapes, a few numbers and loves his VeggieTales. He can identify Bob the Tomato, Larry the Cucumber and the whole crew, and loves to eat tomatoes for lunch, which he calls "Bobs". He is also getting good at drawing with crayons; we had lots of fun drawing cartoon characters and abstract art. It really warms our hearts to hear him say "Mark" and "Laura" when someone points at us. Our nephew is the coolest kid ever.