Taco Thanksgiving

Yesterday we had our taco Thanksgiving. It was really fun! I can't remember ever seeing Taryn laugh and have a good time like that with her brothers. Daniel, Christian's best friend, was here too and Misty my daughter in law. We had so much food we could have fed a dozen more people but that's how it goes with Mexican. I hadn't made a taco dinner in years probably. We did it all the time when we lived in California and when I was asking Taryn and Garrison about Thanksgiving when Taryn was in the hospital they both got so excited about tacos that we just decided to do something different this year. Garrison likes to be home on holidays and decided to just make Misty a dinner at home on Thursday so they could watch football (he is a HUGE Dallas Cowboy fan) and just relax at home, no driving all over the state. So we are going to just have a nice quiet dinner here on Thursday too. Christian has the day off and also Black Friday so he promised he would help me put Christmas decorations out on Friday. I usually do that after Thanksgiving dinner so I have lots of help from the kids and don't end up doing it all by myself.

The best part of the whole evening was playing games together. We played Taboo and laughed so hard at the attempts to make people say words from the cards. All the words you need to describe the word they have to say are forbidden so you are forced to make up stuff or think of another way to get them to say the word on the card. It's really funny and gets loud as people make fun of the way you get certain parts of a word said. I hadn't seen Taryn that happy in years. It was so good to have everyone together and doing something fun. I talked to Garrison about moving back to Denver so we could do game night every Sunday and stay close as a family. My girlfriend Shawn has this tradition in her family that I've always loved. A nice Sunday dinner with everyone then playing games together. It's done so much to bring her family close and I have wanted to do it too. Yesterday we did that and what a wonderful memory we made!! Taryn has grown so close to her brothers through this surgery. They were really there for her and when she saw them in the hospital she held on and sobbed. She needed them and it was so wonderful to see how the love between them was strengthened by this sad event. I think life is more precious to all of them now and they are tighter than they have ever been. There are moments you never forget in your life and I felt privileged to watch the relationships between my children grow stronger through all of this. It's one of the good things to come out of this bad thing. They are there if you look for them. We always ask ourselves why when tragic events unfold and sometimes we actually get answers to that question. I don't think they would be this close without having gone through this together. I'm just grateful for so many reasons this year. That's a whole other blog though!

Love,
Adele