Thanksgiving Gratitude and Beyond

Goodness. It's been a long time since I've updated our Raff Update blog site. My apologies.

I'm showing two photos of our family over the Thanksgiving weekend. Marika and Evan and my mom and my brother all arrived for our four-day celebration of cooking, eating, and enjoying our time together. Our house is just the right size for our family reunions. Adam and Laura couldn't join us but hosted their own feast in LA with some invited friends.

Now that Thanksgiving is over, we look ahead to the Winter Holiday vacation. Marika arrives tonight (!) at the Detroit airport for a long four week rest -- although it will be filled with MCAT study time mixed with visiting friends and relaxing.

Evan is in NYC doing a general medicine rotation until next week. He flies back to LA for a required medical school exam but will be here in Michigan on December 19th for a couple of weeks with us. Adam is coming on December 19th (coming in on the same flight from LA) for less than a week when he'll leave Michigan and head to Boston to meet up with Laura.

My mom is coming here in a few days from Kentucky and will drive with me to Rochester, NY for four days to help my brother get his new apartment set up. He moved to Rochester a month ago for a new job and I offered to help him make his apartment into a "home."

Gil is working happily at the hospital and here in his Milford office. He loves having the kids around and he is enjoying good health. He also has become intensely interested in the stock market and can spend hours of his free time reading books written by successful traders and comparing various trading systems. He still loves photography but the weather is not conducive, so reading inside next to the fireplace is the winter activity of choice.

I'm staying healthy and working out at Pilates or at our local YMCA five days a week. I still spend a lot of time working with Willow to make her into the kind of dog we can love and take anywhere without worrying that she'll misbehave. She is one sweet girl. Jamie continues to be a good role model and mentor.

Hunkering down for another long Michigan winter but I can gladly report that it's been a rather sunny month of December so far. Nothing dreary or too gray.

Yes, the sun sets early (5:02 pm today) these days and the sun reappears after our morning has already started (7:52 am today) but it's been a good beginning to the season so far and we're rather used to using our winter months as a time to sit, relax, reflect, cook and eat good healthy meals together.

Haiku:

Once the sun goes down

We hunker down and savor

The quiet moments.