Sunday, November 29, 2009

A Glorious, Wondrous, Long Weekend

I haven't taken a lot of days off this year. I started to once in June. But it didn't work out. So having 4 days off in a row this week has been, well, pretty glorious.

We spent Thanksgiving with family. Eating, watching football (well, they watched football), playing mah jong and other games, and generally enjoying each other's company. We let Casey do the toast this year. He began by clearing his throat several times, followed by an "um" or two or five (sure couldn't tell his mom was a speech & debate coach from the slow start). And then, he began: "Um, my birthmom died? In a car . . ."
I cut him off at that point and reminded him that we were toasting something he's thankful for. He restarted, and this was his toast: "I'm thankful for food!" Who couldn't raise their glass to that?


And on Thanksgiving, we were risky-- we let the kids stay up until (gasp!) 10pm, knowing that it typically backfires on us and causes an even earlier wake-up than the usual 6:30 a.m. weekend wake-up calls we get. But this year it didn't. And we slept in (again, gloriously) until 7:00 a.m. the next day.


Last year we spent Black Friday at a nearby mall. We didn't get to the mall this year, but we did hit the movies. No crowds. We saw Fantastic Mr. Fox. We brought along two of Casey's best friends, and they played Indiana Jones Wii for a while afterward, while Marcie and I picked out pictures for her birthday card thank you notes.



On Saturday we woke up to rain. Again, glorious. It hadn't rained in something like 160 days days. That's insane. Even for Southern California. We headed out in the rain to a nearby bowling alley (doing recon for Casey's birthday party in January), and we played some ball. Our lane glitched, and it kept clearing the pins after the first bowl. And even with the bumpers, a 9 or 10 pound ball didn't always make it all the way down the alley without some help. But the kids still had fun:



Then today we braved the mall. And we were pleasantly surprised. We hadn't planned to go to the mall, but we had some returns and the kids practically begged. So there we were. We went to the mall last weekend, too. And caught up with Santa early this year. Marcie said hello to him but refused to take any pictures. Casey was a bit braver:


And we put up the Christmas tree early this year, too. I suppose it's not that early. I mean, Christmas is only a month away-- not even a month away.


This year flew right by me. Must faster than any year before. Jason says it's because the older we get, the smaller the percentage of our lives each year is. Maybe that's it. But it does feel, sometimes, like it's going too fast. And I need to remember to stop and enjoy it-- to tell people how grateful I am to know them, to make sure I take pictures (at least mentally), to enjoy and experience what the world has to offer. And remembering all this on Thanksgiving weekend is perfect.

1 comment:

:::d::: said...

I'm glad you had a wonderful weekend. The last photo is frame-worthy. I love it.