Tablecloth of thanks

The kids and I had a very nice Thanksgiving with our family and friends. In all there were 19 of us eating dinner. The meal was fantastic and so was the company.
Nine years ago when we had our first Thanksgiving in Az., two of my cousins and their spouses came to our home from out of state for Thanksgiving. We had so much fun with them and started our longest running tradition....we wanted all who had dinner with us to sign their name and mention something that they were grateful for that year. We used the same cloth every year until this year. I am not sure if it was by accident or coincidence that this year we needed a new tablecloth, due to the old one being full. Our new cloth has many of the same things that we were and are grateful for but family and Dad(Shane) were especially high on the list. It was sad not having Shane with us for the holiday but, I found myself thinking how blessed we are that we still have him with us. Even my mom was with us and signed the cloth as she has done before. We welcomed new friends to this tradition and the rest(including kids)remembered with laughter some of the signings of the past nine years. We spent most of the meal laughing.

Speaking of Shane, he was living one of his dreams by looking for the biggest set of elk antlers he could find in northeastern Az. He has patiently(somewhat)waited to be drawn for a super elk hunt and as luck would have it, he gets drawn this year. So we all encouraged him to go and bring us back an elk. But by looking at the picture to your left, nature is huge and I think the elk have a really big advantage! So after hunting for 3 days then a trip to D.C. for a 15 minute oral argument then 2 more days of hunting and very little sleep. I am sad to report that Shane's dream will continue, no elk was taken on this hunt.
So now I am starting to panic about this.....