<p>Oh Gladmom–I would be in California in a minute with that invitation. Hope he is not near the wild fire. I’m praying for California right now.</p>
<p>Artmom, I so wish we could go, but it is so expensive, what with flying, renting a car and hotel. 
My consolation is that he will be home 2 weeks later. Also, we have relatives nearby who will probably ask him for dinner. And a very good friend is also not going home and her parents are coming to town, so maybe he’ll get to have them as surrogate parents.</p>
<p>He is not near the fire. I am so sorry for the students at Westmont College.</p>
<p>I actually repeatedly told my freshman s to track down some Thanksgiving guests for us, but he came up empty handed. I love the idea of having new people joining us and I just think it would be wonderful. If any of your children that aren’t coming home are here in the midwest–just send them our way! This also would’ve been a convenient and acceptable excuse not to spend T-giving at my in-laws. Since we didn’t find anybody, my husband actually had to tell his mother that since the break is so short we wanted to spend it with just our family. This was not well received. I figure there are only two possible scenarios to this break: 1. He will be in the door and back out again to see all his high school friends, and the only day he’ll actually spend any time with us will be Thanksgiving, or 2. He will have a lot of work to do–which is what he said yesterday–and will sleep, eat, and study. Either way, I don’t feel in that four day weekend we can afford to give a day to my in-laws, who live about half a mile from us so we see them about 8,000 times a month anyway.</p>