The beauty of thanks

A few photos from our Thanksgiving celebration... 11 adults, 5 children -- 16 beautiful people in one home, sharing a meal and laughter.

The table... and the first day of sunshine in weeks!

Steen's mom joined us.

Along with Steve, Rob, Kristin and Eva...

And Jen and Camille...

And Will...

And Nick's good friend Bea...

And we ate and talked, laughed and chatted... and ate... and ate! Don't even get me started about the amazing sweet potatoes, the incredible cranberry sauce, or the pies! The pies! And pears with some kind of melt-in-your mouth sauce. No no... don't get me started!

And then we sent the guys off to the kitchen. They did a great job of cleaning up (here you see Steen, Martin, Steve and Klas)!

It was very special to celebrate this special holiday with all of these people who I am thankful to call my friends!!!!

Thankful

Tomorrow our home will (hopefully!) fill with the conversation, laughter and smiles of many of my American and Swedish friends as we gather to celebrate Thanksgiving.

[If you're wondering "Why tomorrow?" The quick answer: because this is Sweden, and Thanksgiving day is not a holiday.]

So, nearly every day I drop Lucas at school and then walk 30 minutes from Lucas's school to work, and then after work I reverse the trip to pick him up. I relish those walks and usually use them to plan out my day, make lists in my head (I'm a notorious list maker), or listen to "Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me" on my iPod, laughing loudly to myself the whole way down the street. Rarely do I use those trips for one too-easily forgotten purpose -- to relax. To let go of my job, my responsibilities at home and everything else that finds itself running around in my brain and just let my mind wander.

But I did it on Tuesday. No iPod. No list making.

I started, instead, to think about Thanksgiving tomorrow.... and not about the shopping that needed to be done for it or how we should fit 16 people into our modest home for a meal.

But about "thanks" and "giving".

And at the risk of sounding all sappy, I thought of how incredibly lucky I am.... so unbelievably, fate-testing, lucky. And how inexpressably thankful I am for so many things.

Sometimes, when we're discussing a sad story in the news or someone's struggle, my dad says some version of "There, but for the grace of God, go I". And isn't he right? My life could be so many things... it could be filled with sadness, despair, frustration, illness, poverty, hunger, struggle, war.

But it is not.

I have a beautiful, healthy family. And I'm not just talking about my four guys at home, but also about my parents, my brother and his family, grandpa, all of my inlaws, cousins, aunts and uncles, nieces and nephews... I'm also talking about the hundreds of people I can count as "relations". And my good friends, the ones I can call on a day when I just need a smile. The ones who drop a line just to say hello.

And my amazing education, without which who knows where I'd be. My skills. My life. The smiles I can share with others every day. I'm thankful for rainy days and happy. And so much more.

And as I walked, my heart swelled with happiness.

There is so much to be thankful for.

And then I picked up Lucas and we headed home. When we got there, he took off his shoes and hat. And I was thankful for this.

Sun, sun, sun

Our boys can now testify that it takes three plane rides to get from Sweden to one of the many paradises on earth -- Langkawi, Malaysia. And, yes, it takes another three to get home again.

One of these plane trips lasts 13 hours. Nicholas was fine with it in the beginning, but after about 8 hours, he'd had enough (as I'm sure anyone who was on the plane with us that day will tell you.)



But, after hours and hours of flying, we ended up here.

And it was all ok.

We spent most of our time (i.e. three hours a day) at the pool. Nicholas fell in love with swimming -- jumping into the pool without fear (even missing the pool completely and landing flat on his behind on the edge) and, in the end, dunking himself under the water and coming up all smiles.

The bigger boys, of course, loved playing in any of the hotel's five pools too. The challenge was to keep track of them.

When the pool wasn't good enough, there was always snorkelling....

We spent an afternoon sailing through a mangrove forest, where the trees grow by the thousands right in the water - their roots entangled in one-another in a vast network that absorbs the tides like a sponge.

A few monkeys joined us as we sailed.

And we also had a chance to feed the fish at one of the many local fisheries (yes, that crab Lucas is holding is ALIVE!)...

We visited a wildlife park and bird sanctuary, where the boys had a rare opportunity to interact one-on-one with the animals.

We enjoyed great Malaysian, Indian and Thai food, of course.

And basically just enjoyed a week of getting to know each other again -- laughing, telling stories and relaxing. An unforgetable time!

Wow, aren't my guys handsome????

And to top it all off, we had sunsets like this.

Bonus photo -- a bit of Malaysian humor.