Thanksgiving Away from Home

Thanksgiving Day was definitely a different experience being away from our families. I had just seen my parents the weekend before when they came to visit, but we still terribly missed all our family on the holiday. Up until now, living here has kind of felt like being at school, and we would just get to go home for holidays...but we didn't get to go home for the holiday.

But our day wasn't gloomy and sad. We somehow ended up with 4 Thanksgiving invites: my cousins in LA invited us to Temecula, our family friends Lu and her family in Escondido, Josh's great uncle and aunt, and even our new pastor invited us to his home. We felt loved. We thought we would having nothing to do that day, and we were so blessed that so many people reached out to us.

We ended up in the Temecula wine country with my cousins Jill and Jim, their triplets, and Jim's family. It was great to meet some new people, hang out with family we don't often see, and have a fabulous Thanksgiving dinner! We were hoping to have time to stop by Escondido on the way home for some of George's famous ice cream and Lu's hot fudge, but Josh had to work at 11PM. I guess we saved some 1200 calories or so there.

Temecula is about 1 hour north of San Diego, and it is famous for it's wineries. It is situated against the backdrop of beautiful mountainous foothills. It was nice to drive up to north county and see some mountains.

So I guess our first Thanksgiving away from home was a success, though we wished we were home.

And I guess I can't complain that I went rollerblading in shorts and a tank top on a sunny, 80 degree Thanksgiving morning along Mission Bay. Yeah...that part was pretty awesome.