I am getting ready for an onslaught of visitors. I am excited about this, so “onslaught,” with any negative connotation that might accompany that term, is perhaps not the right description. Whatever word best describes the arrival of happily anticipated guests is what I’m going for here.
Every year at Thanksgiving, our family from Utah comes for several days, and since these are some of my favorite people in the world, you can imagine I look forward to spending time with them. They are arriving on Wednesday and will be with us until Sunday. This is my sister’s son, Jim, his wife, Karri, their two kids, Eli and Sophie, and my sister’s ex-husband, Ray. Jim’s sister and her husband can’t make it and I’m sorry about that. They, too, rank right up there in my favorites.
We are going to Ojai for one night of camping on Wednesday. This should be fun. My daughter, Sarah, is a first year medical resident in family medicine and as such gets to work nights on both Thanksgiving week and Christmas week. Therefore, we’re celebrating our Thanksgiving not on Thursday, but instead on Friday. That gives us the chance to run off to Ojai for a quick camping jaunt. I only wish that Sarah, Gregorio and Luna could come be part of this time. Liz, Ron and Rachael will be driving up Wednesday night to camp and will caravan back to LA mid-afternoon on Thursday. We might get to see Sarah for a brief time between when she wakes up in mid-afternoon and goes back to work at 7.
I love camping and I love Ojai so I am happy about this part of the trip. We are not having holiday food before Friday so this is all about turkey hot dogs and store-bought potato salad. This should be very relaxing and pleasant. My goal is to have most of the Thanksgiving food prepared before we leave for Ojai so that our return doesn’t signal me having to move into high, high gear, preparing a big meal on Friday. That is the plan, at least.
Whatever the case, I am happy Thanksgiving is almost here. This holiday signals pure happiness for me. I can’t wait.
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