Thanksgiving. Really.

Some of our friends looked at us as though we'd lost our minds.

It wasn't an easy decision, mind you. But in the end, we thought it was the right one.

So we loaded up six kids, one dog, and enough toys and clothes to get us through the weekend, and we headed off on a 350-mile road trip to Grandma's house for Thanksgiving.

When I told one friend about our plans, she just shook her head and laughed. Another's eyes popped wide open at first, and then began to slowly tighten as the realization began to set in.

"You're taking three, six-month old babies on a 6-hour road trip?" she asked. Yep, we were.

I'm increasingly convinced that context is everything. If you have one child, and you are faced with taking that one child in the car for six hours to Grandma's house, that appears to you to be a daunting challenge. So if you have one child, the thought of taking six on that same trip seems overwhelming. Outlandish. Ridiculous.

Stupid.

But we went anyway. And the first leg of the trip wasn't too bad. The girls watched movies and the boys slept, except for a brief, 20-mile stretch outside of Casper, during which they wailed for all they were worth, and had us wondering if we were going to make it.

Beyond that, the trip was just like any other. Including Grandma's turkey and famous stuffing. And playing in the park, and painting rocks, and going to the Christmas parade. And spending time with Grandpa, uncle Justin, aunt Cammy, Aunt Jan, Uncle Dale, and Great-Grandma Jo. It was terrific, and, dare I say, pretty easy.

Pride, however, truly does come before the fall. Put another way, the initial ease of the trip made us a little cocky.

On the Saturday after Thanksgiving, we loaded everything back into the minivan (and by we, I mean my wife, because I am incapable of cramming that much stuff into that small a space), and hit the road for home.

And then it began. Imagine a baby in your car screaming from before Casper all the way to Wheatland. That's about 150 miles. That's a little less than half of the trip home. Got it? Ok, now imagine three babies screaming for that same period of time, and at least one of your daughters screaming too, because she's tired of sitting between two screaming babies.

I've suffered less hearing damage at Metallica concerts. And my nerves have been less wracked as well. It was, shall we say, not the most pleasant time our family has spent in the car together.

In retrospect, we are so glad we went. Our family lives quite a distance away, and we don't get to see them often. The trip was worthwhile just for that.

But the difficulties of the trip itself reminded me of how much we have to truly be thankful for. We are thankful for the boys' voices and the inescapable reminder that they are alive and healthy. We are thankful for the girls' irrepressible need to carry the boys around and the reminder that they are well-adjusted and love their new brothers. We are surrounded by such reminders every day. We truly do have so much to be thankful for during this season and all year long.

And although we may be rightly accused of pride now and again, we aren't stupid. We won't be making the trip to Grandma's house again anytime soon.