November was busy too

In November, I won tickets for Kent and me to attend a gala for the Veterans Community Project. We bid on tickets for the Hip Hop Nutcracker and kept bidding long enough to get the tickets. We also bought a slew of raffle tickets for a quilt—there were several quilts, but I was only interested in the one you see here. Yes, we won the quilt too.

And we made our last trip to Yuma for Thanksgiving. We knew we were going to go for a hike so I (finally) replaced my hiking boots. Dad had bought me an amazing pair years ago, but they were destroyed when we flooded in Boston. These are the same brand, although not quite as nice.

Alison has taught herself acrobatics and flexibility moves. She is truly a pretzel (and didn’t get that from me, that’s for sure).

Kent, Ben and Jordan finally finished out their customized game of Risk Legacy. Jordan got that a couple of years ago and as you play, you settle the rules, and there are only so many games you can play until the board is full. This was the final year. Kent says it was a really great gift and I know he’s enjoyed playing it with Jordan and Ben.

We had our usual amazing food for Thanksgiving, made even more amazing by the fact that Ben and Jen and the family were moving to California the very next week. So we enjoyed the food, the fire pit, seeing all my family together again, and especially enjoying having Amanda as our daughter-in-law now. It was a great trip.

We got back late the Saturday after Thanksgiving, just in time for the blizzard the very next day. Yes, a real blizzard. But things cleared up enough for us to go to that Hip Hop Nutcracker I mentioned earlier—and it was amazing!

I have no shame

Last week while in Virginia for Thanksgiving, I got pedicures for Jen, Alison and me. But we wanted to go shopping afterwards and I hadn’t brought proper flip flops.

What I had brought was a pair of house slippers that are like flip flops but pretty clearly not the real deal. They do have soles on them but they are pink terry cloth and you’d never wear them on the beach. But I didn’t want to ruin my pedicure!

Pink slippers on the right

So I wore them to lunch—I’m sure I shocked anyone in Panera who looked at my feet but so what? After we finished lunch and got to the mall, I put on my real shoes and was good to go.

We are family

We had such a great time in Virginia—so glad we went, so very glad Jordan and Sophie could be there also and very grateful that Ben and Jen are willing to host all of us.


We met Colin. Just look at those eyes! They aren't exactly brown (sigh) but they are also very different from Alison's eyes and Eliot's too. Both of those kids have crystal blue eyes. Colin's eyes sometimes look gray or navy blue.

Alison has changed so much. She's looking very grown up, not like she's in kindergarten. Some of that is her height (she's nearly four feet tall at age five), but a lot has to do with her new sense of confidence. This visit, she got to make cake pops with Sophie; watching her break the eggs and use the mixer was a lot of fun.

This picture shows perfectly how Colin is--a little love bug who grabs on tight and likes to cuddle. He's really fond of clutching hair in his little fists and can get a death grip you wouldn't believe. I'm not sure how Jen still has any hair left on her head.

Isn't this a great picture of Jen, Alison, Eliot and Colin? I swear Jen stays calm through anything.

Sophie posted this story yesterday about Jen:
The best mommy quote this holiday was definitely when 2 1/2 yr old Eliot asked his mom to get him out of the highchair. Jen, who had a baby in her arms, said "I can't get you right now Eliot, how about you sing a song to yourself."

Jordan and Sophie are just the coolest, always upbeat and looking to make sure everyone else is having a great time too. Kent took some great pictures of them "dancing" with Alison and Eliot and you should see the grins on the kids' faces.

OK, bear with me. Yes,it's another picture of Colin but this one is pretty cute even if he is crying.

Kent and I had gotten Eliot probably three different sets of train tracks from Ikea last spring before we left Boston.

I'd protested that three were too many plus the package said they were for children ages three and up and that Eliot would only be two at Thanksgiving, all to no avail.

I'm here to say that Kent was right.

Eliot loved his train tracks and splitters and whatever else was in there and so did everyone else.

Finally, here's our annual family picture. We clean up OK, don't we?

New traditions

I've loved seeing what my sons want to continue for their holiday traditions--for the most part, they've taken everything I did and incorporated them into their own family celebrations. That makes me feel really good.

This is our fifth Thanksgiving with Ben and Jen and the second year Jordan and Sophie have been able to join us. So we have a couple of new traditions:

• Our Great Pizza Cook-off. This started as a competition between Kent and Ben and now we've decided it's really just a way for us all to have great pizza. This will be our third cook-off.
• Catan Championships. Jordan, Ben and Kent played last year and are playing again this year. I think this will be a new tradition for them.
• Faux Christmas. Ben and Jen graciously put up their tree the Friday after Thanksgiving so we can help and then we open presents. Alison is old enough to know that this isn't the real Christmas celebration and still young enough to enjoy opening all the gifts.
• Pea Tasty. OK it's not really called that, it's called tea pastry but Ben couldn't say that when he was a little kid. We always had the pea tasty for Christmas breakfast and that's a tradition Ben has continued.
• Bake time with Alison. Last year Sophie and Alison made cookies together and this year they are going to make cup cakes. I think Sophie is a saint.

Did you know your adult children develop strong opinions of their own? And that you can really learn from them? Well they do and I most definitely have learned from both sons. This week, Ben told me I shouldn't use the tag "stupid things you're rather not know." He said it's demeaning about what I write and also slightly dismissive toward the people who read this blog. I've thought about it, and I'm going to stop using that tag. It will be hard but I'm going to give it a whirl.

Happy Thanksgiving

I'm in Virginia with Kent, both sons and their families for the holiday and I'm really glad to be here. It's a very cool thing to have adult children as interesting as mine are. I take no credit--as my brother is fond of saying when complimented or dinged about his own children, "it's not my fault."

I hope you are with those you love and who love you right back. I wish for no drama, much tasty food and a relaxing, restorative time.

More later!

A montage from last week

The one thing I didn't get either a picture or video of was the fire I mentioned. The next-door neighbors used a deep fat fryer for their turkey and it was out in the back yard.

What you can't see in any of these pictures is how very wooded the neighborhood is and how many trees still have a lot of dead leaves on them. When the fryer caught fire, the neighbors weren't home because they'd finished their cooking and meal hours ago and were taking food to friends. They had house guests who were home and came outside when they noticed the fire but by then, a tree in the back yard had also caught fire. Fortunately this is a very friendly neighborhood and several others had noticed and brought over hoses, including a fire fighter who'd just finished his shift. We heard him telling the house guest that no, the danger wasn't over and that they did need to keep water on the burn area.

This is a montage from the trip and will probably be interesting only to those who were there.

Home again

We had a great time in Virginia; this is the first time I’ve gotten to see both sons with their wives/families that wasn’t tied to a wedding or family reunion.

I did, in fact, get selected for the backscatter machine and opted out. It was a strange situation because Kent went through first, and was sent through the metal detector. The agent stopped me, asked if I were traveling with anyone and then told me I was selected to go through the backscatter machine. I was very polite when I said I opted out; I’m not interested in getting into any sort of argument about the whole process. I’m just not going through that machine.

Anyway, we eventually got through security and after a lot of delays at JFK (flight was canceled, and we were rerouted through Atlanta to get to Norfolk) we got to Virginia.

I’m still pretty tired since we didn’t get home until after 10 last night; later this week I'll write more about our trip (bonus teaser: we saw a HUGE unintentional fire). In the meantime, here are a few pictures for you to enjoy.

Loving the visit

We got to Virginia Wednesday night and oddly enough, our worst travel delay came well after we landed. We sat for about 90 minutes on the James River bridge--no idea why, any accident had been entirely cleared by the time we moved again.

Alison loves to play dress up and princess, and she got Kent (Granddad) to play with her a long time yesterday morning. Jen snagged this picture, which shows that the sweet goofy side of Kent is sometimes just what a child needs. I should add that for some reason, Alison really didn't want to wear clothes yesterday. It was plenty warm enough to run around that way, Virginia isn't Boston after all.

Here's my favorite picture of me with Alison yesterday. She was a little uneasy when the other family arrived, which was kind of funny since she had been looking forward to playing with the other children. So she hung around the edges of the playroom while the kids played, and then we ended up getting dressed up in princess stuff. Aren't those butterfly wings she's wearing pretty cute? I would have loved to have had those when I was a little girl.