Still giving thanks.

These colors belong to my first cousin once removed.

I shared Thanksgiving dinner with her and sixty-five others, between the cattle and the prickly pear in Central Texas.

Sixty-five first cousins twice removed, second cousins once removed, and even some third cousins, all of them connected to three sisters born between 1910 and 1922. I knew and loved the laughs and crinkly eyes of all three sisters, once they had grown into grandmothers and great aunts. I slept on their carpets, ate in their kitchens and wrapped my lanky-girl body around their window unit air-conditioners, hiding from the scorch of many a Texas summer.

We didn't need the A/C for Thanksgiving, but we didn't need coats, either. I got up while it was still dark, making sure to slip shoes over my bare feet before padding toward the bathroom. Earlier, between turkey and dominoes, we had stomped a few scorpions on the floor of my uncle's big "party barn." You know you're in Texas when you're trying to keep bare feet away from scorpions on Thanksgiving.

When we weren't marvelling at scorpions or at how each others' kids had grown, we found time to do a lot of talking and listening,
a lot of game playing,

and a lot of laughing.

Brothers laughing.

Sisters laughing.

The sister below wasn't laughing in the cool of the morning. While John and I chose to share beds in the loft with nineteen of our nearest and dearest, Kate and my cousin started out the night sleeping in the great outdoors. Perhaps they thought the coyotes would be quieter than the snores. They were wrong.

These are my uncles and cousins, rattling the cowboy breakfast grate.
This is my one-eyed niece, Laura. She looks a little like Violet on The Incredibles. Also like Violet, she will now and then surprise you with amazing things.

Laura didn't spend much time in the party barn, as she was too busy digging bones out of the Texas scrub, asking cousin Audrey for help with identification.

Laura and her mama drove a long way to attend. We did, too---our van has made this drive so many times that it automatically stops at the best barbeque anywhere close to I-35 in Oklahoma. It also knows exactly how far north you can go and still find Blue Bell ice cream in the C-stores. We usually stop at least once for Blue Bell: pistachio almond fudge, pecan pralines and cream, moollennium crunch, chocolate mint chip.

You've already seen my best photos of the day but, if you were there and happen to want to see more, I've put a slide show up on the web. There are lots of photos and they may take a few minutes to load, so click on the link and then go stir up some hot chocolate in the kitchen while the computer catches up. http://www.kodakgallery.com/ShareLanding.action?c=369nb64i.aa1zhiiq&x=0&y=-xuy9tw&localeid=en_US&cm_mmc=site_email-_-site_share-_-core-_-view_photos_button

Enjoy. And y'all come back!