VISITING

Our granddaughter, Lindsay, and her parents left to go home late Sunday afternoon. We had a great visit and it continues to be so fascinating to watch Lindsay’s personality and personality traits develop. She is thirteen months old and is at a stage where her individuality is beginning to really demonstrate itself. As the busy holiday season approaches, we’re glad that seeing her and the rest of the family will be at the center of it all.

We will be making our annual pilgrimage to Illinois at Thanksgiving where all of Eileen’s family will be gathered too. At this point, it looks like all of our kids will travel there too. Thanksgiving will be a little different this year though. Eileen’s mom has to have surgery on the hip she broke earlier in the year. It hasn’t healed correctly and has to be redone. That’s not good news for an 85 year old woman. She will have the surgery on the Monday before Thanksgiving and we will arrive late Tuesday night. Eileen will go to the hospital and stay with her mother until bringing her home on Thanksgiving. I’ll be heading to St. Louis to pick up our daughter who is flying in. Anyway, the Thanksgiving celebration will proceed as usual…with one important participant arriving a little late. Our thoughts and prayers are with her.

We will celebrate Christmas at our house with all of our kids making it home. At this stage of our children’s lives, we consider it a great blessing when all of our children are able to gather. I’m sure there will be years in which that is not possible at Christmas for us, just like there are so many who are unable to make it home because of where they live, their jobs, or because they are serving our nation in distant parts of the nation or world. In fact, we have a nephew who has just arrived in Afghanistan for a deployment that will last many months through and past Christmas. Whether our children and families can gather at Thanksgiving or Christmas, we try to fully appreciate each time we are all able to gather. In that respect, every gathering is as special to us as a holiday one. I hope it is for you too.