Today I'm thankful for my family, particularly since I won't be able to see them during Thanksgiving this week. While they're all for sure a little odd, I want to separate them into three different categories.

My parents

While I've always loved and been grateful for my parents, only recently did I really realize how much of an influence on my life they've been. Earlier last week I was thinking about how I need to get around to sending a package off to Scott for his birthday and I was thinking about how if I was home I probably would have just made some candy or something. Then I started thinking about how I got into the habit of doing that from a suggestion my mom made years ago when Riley had to work at scout camp on his birthday. Later on I was contemplating the end of the semester which reminded me of the practice I had recently adopted of writing a thank you note at the end of the semester to teachers who's classes I had particularly enjoyed, another thing that I had picked up from my mom after she had written a letter to my teacher my sophomore year. Last weekend I wanted some real food and so the first thing that I attempted to make was chicken squares, something that my mom always made for us. The other night, I was editing a friend's paper at some mildly obscene hour of the morning and it reminded me of all of the countless nights I made my mom stay up to some obscene hour of the morning to edit a paper for me that was due the next day.

As I was talking to an associate the other day, we were discussing hobbies and I was asked what it was that I  could/ like to do. As I started listing off random skills that I've picked up and things that I've learned to do, I realized that this was probably something that I had acquired from my dad, who I swear has dabbled in every kind of skill and hobby on the face of the planet. Throughout my life I've discovered that I have the tendency to stay up far to late, often for no real apparent reason. In fact, Thursday night after I had stayed up until roughly 5:00 doing homework I decided to just not go to sleep. While this might not actually be something that I've picked up from my dad it's at least something that we have in common. I remember several nights of "adventures" where we've just both been up during some ridiculous hour of the night. I'm pretty sure that my little spiel the other day about how how excited I was to have a pre Thanksgiving dinner is something I picked up from my dad. For as long as I can remember he has always been making crazy concoctions in the  kitchen and it has become something that I have grown to love to (attempt) to do.  

Even where I went to school was somewhat mirrored after my parents. While I ultimately ended up going to BYU, where my mom went to school, I was seriously considering going to both Western (Somewhere else mom considered) and UDUB where my dad went to school. My dad also went to MP and EVCC.