Last night we invited great friends over to the castle in order to relax and celebrate the holidays. In lieu of recent current events, I went to bed thankful for many things and thought it would be appropriate to blog about them this morning:My wife, Michelle: Sometimes I am in awe that I married to her. The success of our party last night was largely due to her. It wasn't just the idea of the party itself, but also the warm-inviting atmosphere, the holiday-themed drinks, and the fact that we have such a core group of grounded, solid, supportive friends. Michelle is intelligent, beautiful, and puts up with every single one of my weird moods. We often joke that we're the gay couple from the show Modern Family because when no one is around our banter might slightly resemble theirs. The longer we're married the more confident I am that no matter what happens in life, her and I will be able to do anything as long as we're together. I'm constantly proud that I'm able to spend my life with her.
Friends: I couldn't ask for a better group of friends. Traveling through life with them is a blessing. Experiences with them make all the stress from the world disappear. When around them that moment in time is pretty great.
The imagination of a child: Almost every time that we hang out with Anna and Russ, Vivi will ask me to play hide and seek. So we took turns counting to ten (Vivi was adamant about it not being more or less) and I found different hiding places around the house while she continually rediscovered the same hiding spot under the kitchen table. When things got real, though, was when she suggested we play "pirates". What ensued was an elaborate, imaginative game of us being "frog pirates", complete with our own ship, flag, pirate accents, treasure, and alligator swamp filled with sharks (I know, I was a bit confused by that too). As an adult, it is amazing to revert back to being child-like and witness the imaginative creativity of kids. And Vivi is one cool kid.
Charlie: The jumpy, crazy Charlie did not last very long last night and only showed up a couple of times during a new arrival at the door. The majority of the night he was calm and well-mannered. He did follow Vivi around the house as she pulled a beanie baby around on his leash. And there might have been a little incident later on in the evening when he walked into the living room, stopping conversation because his dog parts were out for everyone to see. It was embarrassing. In spite of that social misstep, Charlie is still pretty wonderful.
Our castle: While I was curled up in the corner of the bedroom, hiding from Vivi, I overheard her saying something that absolutely no one would ever say about our meager 800 square foot home: "This house is soooo big. There are soooo many hiding places. This is going to take forever!" We have a great home that we've comfortably made our own, and filled it with important things that matter.
What are you thankful for this Christmas season?
It's the little things, isn't it? Thanks for this reminder that we don't need fancy gadgets, fast cars, big houses, or expensive clothes. We just need each other...and a good imagination!
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