Okay, December 5th may be a little late for a Thanksgiving update, but, well, that's where we are, desperately behind. But so it goes. Better late than never I say. So shall we rewind two weeks or so?
November 22nd was Thanksgiving. We had an awesome meal at Bob's parents house with them and his Grandma, Oma or, as Cora has started calling her, Old Grandma. We were going to take the next day to collect ourselves from what had been a crazy few weeks prior, but instead, in true crazy form, we frantically packed up and hit the road mid-morning the next day to go to Greenville.
My mom always hosts the extended family for Thanksgiving on the Sunday after the holiday. It's always great to see everyone after many months. This year there was another non-relative guest staying with my parents and he was one of the highlight of the trip for the kids. The little brother of my brother's college roommate came to stay with my parents. He is a freshman at Indiana University. The dorms close for the holiday break and his family lives in China. Reed is enamored with China so he was really excited to meet the China Boy. We told him over and over that was not polite and he finally got the hang of just calling him Gary. Reed likes to coordinate his clothing a lot so he put much effort into his shirt selection. He wanted to wear his Ninjago shirt (because Ninjas are from China and it had Chinese characters written on it) but we couldn't find it in our frantic packing state. Instead, he settled on a Kung Fu Panda shirt (of course, because Po is from China.)
Gary was so great to go along with much of what the kids wanted him to do. He played Legos and such quite a bit. I'm sure he was a little bored, but the kids loved it and still talk about him.
On Monday, Bob had to fly out to Las Vegas for a conference and he flew back on Friday. Thankfully, my brother was going to and from St. Louis about the times Bob was traveling so he chauffeured round trip. While Bob was off learning about drafting software, the kids and I hung out at my parents house.
It was great to see my Grandma Maher, the other "Old Grandma," at her house. It meant a lot to have such a nice visit with her.
We also took a picture of us that have our mother's name passed down to us as our middle name.
Edith Lillian (Blumstein) Maher
Kathleen Edith (Maher) Reed
Erin Kathleen (Reed) Mihelich
Katherine Erin Mihelich
(and my Grandma's mother's name was Katherine)
Bob got in late Friday, unfortunately, sick, but we still manage to get up and out Saturday to cut our Christmas tree. The weather was an unseasonably warm 70 degrees. While many might grumble about the un-Christmas-like feel, I loved it. I am not much for the cold. We had a great time and found a cute, petite tree that is just right.
I've walked these rows a few times over the years.
Let the cutting begin.
Victory!
Sometimes you just can't get a family picture.
Reed and Cora both talked to Santa. Expectedly, Reed asked for the Lego Fire Station, but out of left-field Cora asked for a Ladybug Castle. Is there such a thing?
It was crazy to see all the dead trees this year from the terrible drought this summer. I just realized that you can see it quite a bit in these photos.
We had a great but tiring trip. We were gone 9 days and it felt like twice that long when we returned home. I feel like I have been slowly digging myself out of a pile of laundry, mail, packages (yeah, I did a lot of online shopping in Greenville,) homework, and general to-dos. December is hectic as it is, but hopefully I will catch up soon.
Okay, now I can cross 'Update Blog' off my list. 'Christmas Cards' and 'Decorate Tree,' you guys are going to be in my cross-hairs soon. Beware.
