A big thanks!

Something a little different, but I thought I'd just take this time to share just a few of the many "thank you"s I owe. (No update on school I'm afraid, that's all quite boring)

1. Living in (kind of) my own house has definitely made me thankful for all the work the parents do day to day: whether that's coming home from work and making food for everyone else (even one one of us (me) has whole days off at a time and is perfectly capable of doing it), doing the dishes, getting their showers out of the way, fixing all the small things that are always breaking, dealing with all the crises, etc, so thank you parents for that.
2. By extension, this makes me thankful for all the work both Aunt Pam and Grandma and Grandpa did as we were growing up to do about the same thing for Kate and I when they babysat. Thank you for that!
3. Kate: I definitely owe you for a lot more than you might realize. Pretty much more than half of the stuff I learned before coming to WestMo was passed down or picked up from you.
4. I owe everyone in the family for their constant encouragement and interest (even if that's feigned, it's still nice!). Just showing interest is often encouraging enough. 
5. Grandpa: thank you for all those things you built when I was young. Little things like that table for my LEGOs definitely didn't stick out but were all the more important for it: so important that they became a part of growing up. Also, for that year you helped me with my woodworking project. And finally, for getting me that job at the Friend's Shop, because without it I would never have discovered the philosophy textbook that inspired my interest.
6. Grandma: thank you for always hosting the family holidays and for serving as a calm point everyone could gather around. Those gatherings had such an effect on my understanding of what it meant to be a family, where I fit in a family, what sort of things we owed to each other as family members, etc. Those are ideas that I've already started to act on in making my friends sit down together for Sunday meals. And of course, for teaching me to bake!
7. A big thank you to everyone who's sent me something at school, be it a package, postcard, or email. I always enjoy them.
8. For everyone else, I realize just how much work so many people in my life have done to get me this far (often a struggle, I know!). As more and more time passes, and the responsibility for being an adult passes on to me, I constantly have these realizations about all kinds of effects everyone in the family has had on me...If I could remember all of them, I'd make this list a thousand times longer just so I could show my appreciation a little better.

So once again, thank you all!