Giving thanks in Ellensburg, WA

Hi friends! I wanted to share some pictures from my Thanksgiving. It was an exceptional holiday; one that brought me to myself, capping off one of the most lovely, blessed years of my life. I am holding tight to the final days of 2011. It has brought me so much! I am profoundly grateful to the universe for providing the energy and love that I have found to give to it. 

I took a trip to Washington to visit my Uncle Jan, his wife Dorine and their two daughters. I was lucky enough to to join them for four days at the home of their friends in Ellensburg, two hours east of Seattle. Dan, Sue and their son Logan are some of the most generous, creative, inspired people I've ever met. They have a warm, unique home and gardens galore (which we ate from, thanks to Sue's expertise in preservation... jars of fruit, jams, salsa, kimchee, pickled green beans, not to mention an impressive stock pile of root vegetables). We hiked every day, cooked together, ate like kings, and generally enjoyed the company of one another as well as the abundance around us. The trip was, in every sense, a breath of fresh air.

The experience contributed to some changes that have been happening in me, and here is how I know. Shortly after I got back to southern California, the moving truck with all my worldly goods FINALLY arrived from Boston. (For those of you who didn't know... I moved into my own apartment about 6 weeks ago, but I have been sleeping on an air mattress in an empty room on account of a broken-down moving truck). Joy. I'm grateful to see my furniture, my reading lamp and my photos. But when I started opening my many boxes, I was struck by this feeling... as though they had been packed by someone entirely other than me. 

Lets just say you know you've changed when you take half the stuff that you painstakingly wrapped, packed and moved across the country, and toss or donate it. I'm looking at many of my clothes going "where did you ever wear this? Why did you even BUY this?". Much of my stuff was just excessive, unnecessary or representative of a past life that I no longer inhabit. A life that I may have once wished I could return to, but am now able to let go. 

It's a beautiful thing. I believe the experience I had with my new friends and family in Ellensburg helped to "set" the transformation I have been creating in myself this year; made it more clear to me, and permanent. It was like looking under a table and finding the final piece of a puzzle you almost forgot you were working on. 

So thank you very much to Harris family for inviting me to spend the weekend. To the Hart-Davis family, thank you for unknowingly participating in my liberation and furthermore, for being inspirational, interesting, warm and welcoming people. Everyone else, please take a look to see the beauty this family both enjoys and enhances in their corner of the world.

If you want to see ALL the pictures from my trip, you can do that here.

Sunrise hike

Same view, minutes later as the day brightened

Hubbard squash- grown by Sue and Logan

Our hosts, Sue and Dan and their son Logan, have 2 dogs, a cat, and 3 chickens.

Sue's decorations- simple pressed maple leaves

Sue and Logan made 3 Hubbard "pumpkin" pies out of 1/2 of one of their amazing squashes. They were delicious.

The Chickens

Our beautiful Thanksgiving table

My plate: everything made with love and much of it grown in the backyard

Hubbard "pumpkin" pie

Found this beauty on a walk...

Charades! Laughter is so good for the soul, isn't it?

Driving to Swinging Bridge for another hike

Haven in the Sun