Thanksgiving / Birthday #1

One year ago, we celebrated Thanksgiving in the hospital the day after Alex was born. So this year, his birthday fell on Thanksgiving.

I know you are probably wondering what the statistical probability is of having his Nov. 23 birthday on Thanksgiving. I'm glad you asked. Alex's birthday will happen on Thanksgiving four times every 28 years, according to a pattern of 6, 5, 6, and 11-year gaps that is determined by the Gregorian calendar and the complication of leap years. So according to this, his next Thanksgiving birthday will be in 2023 when he'll be 7.

Anyway, we decided it would be a good occasion to host Thanksgiving this year for Becky's family. In my lifetime, I have attended many holiday and birthday gatherings hosted at the homes of my siblings. I don't live near them, so I've never hosted a holiday gathering myself. But Becky and I have hosted many other gatherings and get-togethers, particularly during our single years, and we generally like doing it.

We live in the Phoenix area, but Becky has family in Tucson and Sierra Vista. The drive from Tucson to Phoenix is about 1.5 hours, and from Sierra Vista it's almost twice as long. It really is an accomplishment to get everyone together, so we really appreciated everyone coming out.

Fig. 1. The whole Burden clan, minus mom, who is taking the photo.

My family all got together in Utah, so we had a nice Skype visit with them.

We were primarily responsible for the turkey, which I've done a couple times before. I use a brining recipe that usually works well for producing moist and seasoned meat. You have to get the ball rolling on this recipe on Tuesday to have it ready by Thursday. It turned out okay, although I wished I could taste the herbs and seasonings a bit more.

Fig. 2. Casual post-dinner conversation.

Our house isn't that big, but fortunately the weather is pretty tolerable this time of the year so kids could escape out to the garage to play ping pong and run around. It was good times for everyone I think.

For Alex's birthday, he got spoiled as usual. Lots of books and toys from both sides of the family. I decided I was going to build him something really unique that I saw somewhere on my facebook feed or something. I think people call it a busy board.

Fig. 3. The latter phases of construction on Alex's birthday gift, which I tried to keep secret.

It started with me buying a 18"x36" piece of pine craft board and miscellaneous hardware items to attach onto it - things like latches, levers, and knobs that babies like to play with, as well as four neodymium magnets to attach it to the fridge or washer.

Fig. 4. The final product, complete with knobs, latches, hinges, and casters.

It turned out to be more expensive that I thought it would be because I could only find some of those things at thrift stores, and I sort of went overboard with it. But I was happy with it. And Alex liked it, at least for about 5 minutes anyway before he was on to his next toy.

Anyway, we couldn't be more in love with baby Alex and it's a huge joy to see him every morning. I have no idea what is normal for a kid at this age, but of course every new thing he does we think is pretty special. He is curious and explorative, and he crawls about every square foot of the house every day and gets into everything. We look forward to first steps, first words, and all the other developments that are bound to happen during his second year.

Fig. 5. Playing peekaboo in the curtains, one of his favorite activities.