Yesterday afternoon and evening, I was cooking a few things that we'll be taking over to the home of some good friends of ours for Thanksgiving dinner in a few hours. I enjoy cooking, especially when I have plenty of time and good things to make, so it was a pleasant afternoon. I started to run out of room on my kitchen counters so I decided to just put everything that I would have to take today on the table so it would all be in one place. When I got done, I realized that just the food and drink and dishes that I'm going to bring to this one meal, this one day, fill our entire kitchen table. So much, and so much more than we could ever need.

That's pretty much how I feel about this year. Plenty. It's not just adequate daily provisions we have, but extravagance. It hasn't been as eventful a year as others have been, and really that's part of the blessing for us. Overall, it's been a year of the kind of happy news and simple, common landmark events that make life so joyful.

I'm sitting in our living room in the home we were able to buy this year. I'm thankful for how fast this got to feeling like our home. We love this house and I think we're going to love it for a long time.

It's been a year for weddings. Since last Thanksgiving, we saw Dan's sister Dinah get married to Chris, who we're so glad to have in the family. Before that, I got to attend the weddings of two of my best friends -- within six weeks of each other! Those couples, Chris and Lindsay, and Robin and Jeremy are celebrating their first anniversaries these days. My cousin Jenni got married to Nate. Aaron and Kelly just celebrated their second year of marriage. We've been married for three and a half years now, and it's truly amazing to me how it's possible to love the person you marry more with each passing year than you did when you married them. So we've had an abundance of love.

Our families are well and healthy and happy. Ryan is in Africa, and we miss him, but he keeps us updated, and we're looking forward to seeing him in the spring. My baby sister Audrey is a senior in high school. This means that I am plenty old, in case you were wondering. Kelly will graduate from college in a few weeks. My sister Hannah moved to Tennessee to go to school and got herself a job at Starbucks, which I am hoping means lots of free coffee for me. Aaron was elected the Attorney General of the Student Government Association at MSU, a position which has proven thus far to have relatively few perks for me, but maybe if I get a speeding ticket, Aaron can bail me out. Dan's sister Hannah graduated from college at Texas A & M.

I could go on, but you get the picture. It's all so typical and undramatic, but it's beautiful. We have more blessings than we can count, and for that, we're thankful. Happy Thanksgiving, y'all.

Now thank we all our God with heart and hands and voices.
Who wondrous things hath done, in Whom this world rejoices.
Who from our mother's arms hath blessed us on our way
With countless gifts of love and still is ours today.

Oh may this bounteous God through all our life be near us.
With ever joyful hearts and blessed peace to cheer us.
And keep us in His grace and guide us when perplexed
And free us from all ills in this world and the next.

All praise and thanks to God the Father now be given
The Son and Him who reigns with them in highest heaven.
The one eternal God whom earth and heaven adore.
For thus it was, is now, and shall be evermore.

Martin Rinkart, 1636