Traditions or Lack There Of

 

Military life is a funny thing.  Your traditions are only traditions for 2 to 3 years (sometimes less).  And then you move somewhere new and different and even though you still have traditions, they are altered a bit.  We never see the same 4th of July parade.  Our kids don't know what an annual trip to wherever is because in a few years that trip is to some place they have never been before. 

 

But what we do have is an amazing since of closeness in our little family of 5 because really we are the only thing that is the same each time we move.  Being away from family is not easy.  We miss our parents, siblings, and nieces and nephew terribly.  We Facetime and Skype often and can't wait for the days when they come for a visit.  But I have to say that some of our military friends have become apart of our "family" over the years and I feel so blessed to have all of them be apart of our lives.

 

So I guess our tradition for each holiday is making the best of our new places and friends and hopefully, God willing, to cross paths with old ones.

We had the most wonderful Thanksgiving with some of our oldest military friends.  We knew each other when we were just newly married young couples starting out at our first duty station in Hawaii.

And now...

there are 13 of us when we get together.

We started out this month with a thankful tree and added leaves each day of things that we are thankful for this year.

Family and friends top the list...

 

Our Thanksgiving morning was spent watching the Macy's Parade in our jammies.  My idea of perfection.

 

Our sweet girls. 

 

 

Luke coming up with his strategy for a game of Stratego with Chris.

 

The Smiths

 

The Steeles

 

Double trouble!!  Love these boys.  They are anything but trouble.

 

 

Now these two have trouble written all over them.

 

It had been over 10 years since we had Thanksgiving together and I loved that our tradition could be  repeated again this year.  A tad different from our couples trip to the Big Island in Hawaii, but just as much fun. 

Here is to new and old traditions.