Thanksgiving Recap

I flew to Wichita, KS last Tuesday at ass o'clock in the morning. My family alternates holidays with my brother's wife's family. This year they had Thanksgiving. It was 75 degrees when I arrived. The high the rest of the week was 40! Can you say brrrrrrrrrrrr? It's hard to when your teeth are chattering.

It was a great visit full of laughter, good food, Guitar Hero III and various other games. One of my brothers-in-law and I went rock climbing one day. It was a really good visit with my brother which was nice. We have both really grown and changed in the past few years and our new relationship is awesome. I'm really liking the time we spend together.

My nieces are adorable. Isabella is 3 and Katie is 1. They are super cute and so much fun. It snowed on Friday night about an inch or two so the girls got to play in the snow on Saturday morning and throw snowballs at Auntie Anna. It was nice to see Katie again. She has changed so much since I last saw her in March. She is all Krone (my mom's side) and man does she have a personality. She gives looks at 1 that I don't think I learned until far later. She's going to be a handful. Isabella is a great older sister and looks after Katie. She's a sweetheart and so cute and fun. Isabella broke my heart at one point - we were sitting there playing and I was holding her. She looks at me, puts both hands on my cheeks and says, "Auntie Anna, why you live far away?" I asked my brother if he had put her up to it and he hadn't. Then I asked the in-laws and they said, "No, but now that we know it works..."

I flew back on Saturday afternoon and worked Dickens Fair on Sunday. The madness begins! Beverage should prove to be yet another interesting place to work this year.

When I got home Sunday night, I checked my vmail and had one from Isabella. Read this with a 3 year old voice. "Ann...Auntie Anna, we had a fire ... and made marshmallows ... and they were so yummy." Then my brother got on to tell me they had made their first fire in the new house and since Isabella did such a good job at dinner, she got a special treat for dessert and they made marshmallows over the fire. It was so cute I almost cried.

I'm currently looking at flights for Christmas. I can't wait to see my nieces again. It's going to be hard to be so far away from them in NZ when I move. :-(

All in all, a great holiday and I can't wait for Christmas just so I can see my family again.

This auntie happiness was brought to you by the letters I and K and the numbers 3 and 1.