How to be the coolest Sister... Ever.

Well.. First off you can't.. Because I already am. But that's altogether besides the point.

Really it's simple: tell your family that you are coming home the day before Thanksgiving, and that you'll be there until Sunday.

And then come home 5 days early.

But really, getting to spend 9 days with my family was fantastic (if slightly chaotic and mostly mad craziness the whole time). 

To be honest, I made a mental list of all the things that were completely different at home from other home. And some of them were really fantastic...but that post will come later, probably during Christmas break when I have both time and can remember all the great comments I had. So that's cool.

Thanksgiving is fantastic. I love food. Gosh I love food. Also my birthday was over break, and since I am now a legal adult that was kind of a big deal. Just a tiny bit. 

Our Thanksgiving celebration was a little different than usual. We ate dinner together just as a family, and then I made a key lime pie and a pecan pie, my sister made a pumpkin pie and my mom made a blueberry cream cheese pie. Then we took said pies over to our friends house. They are from Rwanda and had just had their fourth baby girl the previous Saturday which was also very exciting. Anyways, we went to their house, and they had friends also from Rwanda up visiting them-so we shoe-horned my family of 8, their family of 6 and their friends family of 8 into this small little house and ate pie. 

Now let me just pause and talk about how Thanksgiving works in my family: 

We cook all morning. 

Then we eat ourselves silly. 

Then we take naps.

Then we eat pie.

Then we lay around and digest our food.

Then we go to bed. 

That's it. But our friends from Rwanda have a little bit different tradition. That we got dragged into. 

After we ate pie they showed us a bunch of traditional African dances...but they didn't just let us sit on the couch and watch. No no. We were up dancing with them. For an hour and a half. 

Suffice it to say that I was sufficiently exhausted when we left. 

I do miss my family a lot, and it was good to be able to be with them for so long.. but right now my life has taken me to Provo and right here is where I need to be, for however long that will end up being. It's good to see them, and I wish I could visit them more often, but I know I'm in a new phase of life now and it's only going to get crazier from here on out.