Mom,
Thanks for never letting me pierce the cartilidge of my ear. It was a bad idea, and I'm glad you didn't let me go through with it.
Love, Meg.
No, wait...there's more! It's gratitude month. I haven't gone "home" for Thanksgiving since I was 19, so I miss out on sitting around the table and telling everyone what I'm grateful for.
Soooo, here's a little gratitude for my family:
Mom,
Thanks for teaching me the therapeutic benefits of crafting.
Thanks for teaching us to laugh all the time.
Thanks for laughing with me when I call and tell you about a wildly disasterous day.
Thanks for giving me advice that I don't want, but need to hear.
Thanks for coming to visit me every year that you can.
Thanks for teaching me how to throw a good party.
Thanks for teaching me the importance of marrying a good man.
Thanks for many late night phone calls.
Thanks for being a wonderful Grandma to my kids.
Thanks for giving me the desire to make all things pretty, and to "go all out" and do things over the top when it is important to me and I am able.
Dad,
Thanks for passing on your high water table to me. I cry over anything. Emotional movie ending? Sentimental commercial? Good book? Beautiful song? Deep conversation? Absolutely.
Thanks for teaching me to get involved in my community.
Thanks for calling the kids to talk to them on the phone.
Thanks for teaching me how to...well, anything DIY, garden, build, paint, etc.
Thanks for helping me appreciate the beauty of the way things fit together and are organized in space. This gift has come in handy when packing a car, planning a scrapbook or card layout, organizing a closet, hanging pictures, landscaping, making a table display, and designing a room.
Thanks for teaching me the art of grilling.
Thanks for being an example of righteousness.
Thanks for teaching me how to work.
Mark,
Thanks for giving me the extra push I needed to go to college. Both times.
Thanks for introducing me to the Banana's Foster at Maveriks...and for taking me out to lunch every time I come visit.
Thanks for being willing to drive me to the airport on your way to work every time I came home to visit when I was in college, even though I got nervous and threw up in your car nearly every time.
Thanks for not telling people about the throw up part.
Thanks for loaning Taylor to me when she was little, so I could pretend I had a baby sister.
Thanks for always asking me, "but what else are you doing?" because it reminds me that I can always do more, learn more, stretch more, try harder, and be better.
Thanks for forcing me to give black beans a try.
Melinda,
Thanks for being fun and spontaneous and for making me laugh a lot.
Thanks for letting me live with you during the months that Aaron was training for the Border Patrol. I die when I think about what a messy, self absorbed house guest I was.
Thanks for the many late night talks and advice you've given me.
Thanks for the picture of the Oakland temple you gave me a few years ago. I love it.
Thanks for always passing on awesome hand me down toys for my kids. I love them, the kids love them, and I love that the toys have already been loved and enjoyed by my really great niece and nephews, who I miss a lot.
Thanks for being a good example to me.
Thanks for singing wacky songs to your kids in a silly voice. I do the same thing.
HolleeAnn
Thanks for taking me to get my eyebrows waxed the first time, and making me promise to never let them get that out of control again.
Thanks for teaching me the importance of thank you cards.
Thank you for spoiling my kids and sending us awesome mail.
Thanks for letting me crash at your place twice a week when I worked in Morgan Hill.
Thanks for giving me excellent advice for handling Reese's tantrums and anxiety attacks.
Thanks for the "sisters" frame with the picture of you, me, and Amy...and no, I haven't changed the photo ;)
Thanks for always being up for group fun when we get together, for going with whatever the kids are doing, and for taking great photos (where you photoshop the glare off my white legs) to document the whole thing.
Thanks for introducing me to the joy of teaching and for mentoring me.
Thanks for supporting my business 100% and for sending me supplies, ideas, information, and most importantly, for giving me confidence to get started.
Thanks for being a "Princess", on the phone, for Reese and Quincy to share their success with, back when they were potty training.
Paul
Thanks for letting me call you Fonzo
Thanks for dropping everything to spend time with the kids and I when we came out last summer.
Thanks for encouraging me to keep running.
Thanks for taking a 20 minute detour so HolleeAnn and I could get pics of my kids with the windmills.
Thanks for taking another huge detour to hit up some Ca produce stands and a pick your own orchard on your way to Grandma Lawrence's funeral, just I could get my fresh fruit on when we met up.
Thanks for carrying at least one of my kids on your shoulders all over San Fransisco.
Thanks for being all about family and loving my kids enough to think of activities my kids would enjoy when we came to visit.
Thanks for sharing Jim and Carla. I love your parents.
Thanks for always being so quick to offer to run errands for us, or pick something up for us while you're out.
Amy
Thanks for teaching me to sing. Literally. Thanks for free voice lessons for oh....10 years?
Thanks for letting me sift through 11 boxes of boys clothes and toys and loot anything I wanted.
Thanks for your constant example of kindness and charity.
Thanks for letting me hang out at your house a lot when in high school anytime I needed a change of scenery.
Thanks for teaching me to love showtunes.
Thanks for peeing your pants when you laugh too hard, so I'm not the only one in the family that does this.
Thanks for always being up for late late night shenanigans.
Thanks for remembering and understanding how difficult it is to throw up everything you eat when you're pregnant, for holding my hair back a few times, and for forcing dried mangos on me like candy ;)
Thanks for teaching me the importance of helping a friend.
Josh
Thanks for volunteering to chaperone my friends and I when my parents told me I was too young for the Cure/Erasure concert at Shoreline.
Thanks for being cool and not all "chaperon-ey" when we got there.
Thanks for being the "baby whisperer" so I could go to the temple with Amy back when I was too nervous to leave baby Reese with anyone.
Thanks for remembering and calling me on my birthday every single year.
Thanks for sharing your testimony with me a lot when I was growing up, and for telling me to read my scriptures.
Thanks for doing everything you possibly can to get a horrible song stuck in my head every time I visit. Oh wait. NO THANKS for that. By the way, "Mele Kalikimaka...."
bwahahahaha!
Scotty
Thanks for calling me to catch up every couple weeks.
Thanks for coming to visit me everywhere we have lived. You've seen almost every place we've ever lived...even the crummy rentals. That's a huge deal to me.
Thanks for being sensitive to how I handle hard situations, and for having the courage to ask me. Thanks for my taste in music. I'll give you nearly full credit for that one.
Thanks for telling me to start this here blog :)
Thanks for giving me the support and advice I needed to get through the transfer process at BSU and for giving constant encouragement until I was done.
Thanks for unrolling your window at the Drive Thru Safari. You know I'm too much of a rule follower to have ever been brave enough to do it myself. But I've always wanted to do it.
Thanks for rolling the window back up when the Zebra stuck his head in my car.
Thanks for helping me bite the bullet and book the Virgin Islands trip this summer.
Thanks for being cool with me calling you "Scotty" still. Even though we are grown ups, now.
Thanks for doing anything to make my kids laugh...even if that means running through the sprinklers at a restaurant, or letting a goat eat your shoelace.
Kristie
Thanks for being a great hostess when we've visited.
Thanks for being my friend.
Thanks for starting the Lawrence Family Cookbook project. It's going to happen! I won't give up until everyone is "stuffed to the muff"
Thanks for letting my kids maul Lacey when you came to visit.
Thanks for coming to visit us.
Thanks for making me laugh every time we're together.
Thanks for eating my baguettes anyway when I forgot to add the salt and they were gross.
Thanks for having me in your wedding.
Thanks for sharing your love for all things pumpkin with me.
To all the men in our family: Thanks for jumping to carry suitcases, assemble cribs and pack n plays, move carseats, set up strollers, and help with the kids every time I travel home alone with the kids. I never have to ask or express my exhaustion because one of you is already on it. Every time! Thank you!
To all the women in our family: Thank you for being mothers to my kids, great examples of womanhood to me, and for indulging my weird food cravings. And for not calling them weird, because any of you would have a bucket list of places to eat each visit if you were ever cut off from Super Taq, Running Rooster, Erik's, Togo's, or In n Out. And I totally love that about you.
To the whole family,
Thanks for being my family. We're a pretty fantastic family, and I'm grateful to be a part of it.
Love you all. I miss you bunches.
Meg
Goodbye Butterflies
12 years ago