grateful

So here we are, it's Thanksgiving and that makes it the first holiday away from home.  I am missing all my family back home, but now this is where I am so on some level there has to be a new sense of toegetherness with my own little clan. 
We decided upon invitation that we would revisit the same cabin that started this whole transition.  The last time we were here, the impression in my mind was that it would be a long, long time before we would ever be able to get up here again.  Little did I know that it would only be a short six months and here we are yet again.  The scenery is beautiful and the company even better.  Thanksgiving could not have been a better time to make this journey.  A time of contemplation and reflection, sitting beside a fire while snow falls gently outside.  I might be mistaken, but I think I have just stepped in a Halmark Movie. 
The kids have been sledding every chance they get and I have been grazing on tuirkey and snacks, set on truly earning those holiday pounds.  There is a fierce ping-pong competition that I am now determined to dominate.  Spending time with cousins that I should have grown up with, but due to circumstances that I could not control, did not.  There is always a board game going and perhaps some cards.  Mittens that look like snowballs and red rosy cheeks with runny noses is the best way for kids to be.  Sleeping, that is the best part.  I swear that I now look 10 years younger.  The truth is that good sleep will do that to you.  My skin is glowing and the dark, suken in circles that reside under my eyes normally have dissappeared.  I feel refreshed.  I have decided that staying her until spring would be the best idea in the world. 
There are responsibilities that await me back in my sleepy little town of Sparta.  Work needs to be done, bills need to be paid...  Right now, they seem miles and miles away, just as they should.  Meanwhile my time here has given me much.  A renewed sense of security and comfort in my decision to move across the country to live in a place that I did not know with people that I have never met.  It is all working out well. I don't think that I could have asked for a better place to raise my children or spend my days. 
Yes, this Thanksgiving truly sets the tone for exactly why I made this crazy journey.  It could have ended up so horribly, but instead it is fast becoming the most delightful time of my life.