From Colorado to Illinois and back

Well I'm back. I drove to Illinois on Monday and back on Saturday. I had a really good trip. I got to take my neice and nephew to see The Polar Express! It was so cute. And they now have a 19 month old golden lab. That was interesting. She's a sweet dog just likes to jump on people occassionally and be apart of everything. Thanksgiving was fun. We just ate and then sat around and visited, like we usually do. It was great.
I absolutely love my sister. She's wonderful. After she got married and I went to college we became a lot closer. She's so much older than me that when we were growing up we didn't get along. Which made sense, she was in high school when I was in grade school. I always looked up to her though. I always wanted to be just like her. And now is no exception. She's happy where she is, she has 2 wonderful children, and a great husband. Over the last few years she's taken care of me and is now one of my best friends. Being away from her is one of the hardest things about being in Colorado. And I love her kids. . .I can't imagine how I'm going to feel about my own children when I love my neice & nephew so much. My nephew is in kindgergarten and he's a total boy. And my neice is total girl. She loves to read and dance and play with Barbies. I find that I'm very protective of her. I never want anyone to hurt her, although I know that will happen. She reminds me of me when I was her age. She is always reading and mostly quiet. But when she gets excited about something, she gets super excited. And a huge smile comes upon her face. I always want her to know that she's beautiful and wonderful. If I feel this way about my neice . .wow! If I ever have a daughter, it's going to be nuts! I was thinking the other day about whether or not that's the way Jesus feels about me. Never wanting anything bad to happen to me but knowing it will and being there when it does. Does he take that joy in me?
Last night I realized that I definitely don't want to make that trip from here to Illinois and back again for Christmas. Hopefully I'll be able to hitch a ride with someone. Getting to IL was no problem, the time seemed to fly by but then coming back once it got dark it sucked. And when I got back into CO it was snowing a little and I immediately tensed up. So for the last 3 hours or so I was scared to death I'd hit a patch of ice and going flying. My truck doesn't handle snow and ice well at all. But I got home fine, thank goodness.
Thanksgiving was good. I do have a lot of things to be thankful for.