It was such a wonderful Thanksgiving! My beautiful daughter Amber came home to visit for the holiday and brought Duane, her boyfriend and his mom Joy to spend the holidays with us. We were so happy to see Amber! We have missed her so much and even though it was only 12 days since we saw her last, it was too long for us. I couldn’t wait to hug her and see her beautiful face. Duane and his mom came and they are both so wonderful. We just love him to pieces and we love everything he stands for! He is so handsome, bright and loving and you can see why. His mom is so beautiful and so sweet. You can tell, she really loves her son and she should. The fruit never falls far from the tree and she has done a spectacular job with him. I am so anxious for them to come back for the holidays again!

Marc and Maria and Mariah (Marc’s daughter) as well as Amanda and Stevie were here as well! I love the holidays, especially Thanksgiving. It seems like the world just shuts down and its not about giving gifts, but about giving thanks and love to all those who mean so much to you. JR and I were over the moon with everyone here and believe me…we filled every second with memories. JR went jet skiing with the kids (he loves when they will play in the water with him) and Duane learned how to wakeboard as he is a great athlete (thanks Amanda for the help, she is great at watersports :) and then convinced Amber to do it and she did it!!! The thing I love the most about him, is how happy he was the moment she agreed to try and then the moment she got up on that board! He was thrilled! I love him and Joy. I wish of course, the weekend hadn’t gone so fast. I wish we could freeze time when we wanted to for a moment. It seems we spend the first couple years of life trying to teach our children how to walk and talk and then the next several years how to stop running, and not talk back to us and then we are back to trying to keep them small again because we love them so much that it is hard to let them grow!!! I suppose it is what we all experience at some moment in time with our kids.

We have to be thankful for the most wonderful daughter in the world. She will head back to NYC tomorrow, where she will finish her classes in film and continue her studies. Even though we know it is what she wants and it is such a great opportunity for her…we still miss her so much and wish she were home. They grow so fast! I never understood that when I was younger. I always thought my mom treated me like a baby sometimes…what I failed to recognize was, is that I was a baby…her baby!!! How old I was, didn’t matter and never would. I get it now and I am officially my mother and I love every second of it. I hope all of you had the most spectacular Thanksgiving ever and cherished every moment with the people you love as we did. Remember, you don’t have to wait until Thanksgiving to say thanks or tell someone you love them and make today all about doing just that!! Reach out and say “thanks”, “I love you”, or just give someone a big hug. You will make their day and it feels so good. We all have so much to be thankful for.

Until next time,
Loren
xoxox