Thank You, Friends!

Our family, and two others, just got back from our annual vacation to Napa. Each year we head to Calistoga, which is wine country's quieter, gentler town. It is still small and hasn't been dominated by fancy cars, over-priced restaurants and irrational, upscale boutiques. You know this is true if you can take 7 kids to dinner and receive minimal stares.

While there, we celebrated Birk's 9th birthday. (She is thankful that the Mariachi band wasn't at the Mexican restaurant for her birthday dinner!) What better way to celebrate your birthday, as a kid or grown up, than by floating around a huge, mineral pool that has got to be the world's biggest hot tub.

For the fourth time, all 13 of us, travelled to Indian Springs. While there, we always gel into one big, relaxed family. The kids hang, the grown ups hang, and we all eat and eat and eat. Oh, and the grown ups are surrounded by vines, so you know what that means. Happy kids. Happy parents. Happy life.

As a family, we are very thankful that we can spend this time with our friends. It's true, when you are so far away from your real families on Thanksgiving, it is amazing to have friends who love you like family.

This is not true of just our friends that travelled with us on this trip, but of all of our friends near and far. You support us each and every day and you mean the world to us. Life can be a big, messy, unmanageable place--our friends make it smaller, cozier and manageable.

Thank you.