The Day After...

So, my things that I am thankful for...Well, first off we are thankful that our boys are healthy. We realize every problem they have could be so much more serious. We are thankful to have a roof over our heads, food on our plates and clothes on our boys. I am also thankful that D is home more now. I am thankful that we live close enough to most of our family that we are able to spend time with them. I am thankful for the Internet!! Yes, I have to admit that I would be lost without my email. I know that I would probably never keep in touch with friends and relatives that lived further away if I didn't have my email.

And I am thankful for each of you for so many reasons, but here are the top reasons. MandM, you are my adult conversation and weekly sanity check. Mini Mehe, you have that perfect balance between humor and practicality. Monkeybug, OMG, so how can one person have such a variety of talents and cool ideas? So, Puppy1Bug2, I love how I never have to guess what you are really thinking!! Pete's Haus, oh, I know you so get it with the MIL ranting (I always smile when I think of antiques...)

Well, we managed to make it through Thanksgiving without watching Planes, Trains and Automobiles. I'm a little surprised.

We had a pretty normal typical Thanksgiving. Up early to read the black Friday ads over coffee and breakfast. My SIL did the very smart thing and made dinner more of a pot luck. She provided the turkey, spuds and stuffing and desserts. We brought the ham, rolls and cranberry relish. Her husbands siblings brought the rest. That just makes for such a relaxing dinner, well, until the chaos of actually getting the food spread between two tables with the milling about as you fill your plate and argue over who sits at the kids table, the breakfast bar or the big table. She has an awesome house for gatherings like this.



So, as requested here is a photo of D, the master flamer, putting the finishing touches on the ham. I think for a ham it may work a little better to go to the garage and break out the camp stove propane and put a torch on it. The little kitchen butane thing needed a refill part way through the process. But it did work, for way less than the cost of buying a flame crafted ham.

So, the kids seemed to have a good time. They got to play with their cousins' two boys. On Thursday more kids showed up. One was H's other girlfriend. She is about a year younger than him. My SIL's SIL came with her 2 week old granddaughter. That is W's new girlfriend. I think he snagged that baby and held her before some of the grandma's in the house could snatch her. He just loves babies.

Of course D had to work today, so we came home last night. No shopping for me. You know what, the world hasn't come to an end either. And I seriously doubt that I will actually have to go a year without socks by not hitting Freds this morning before the crow peed. It would have been nice to go to a better JoAnns than we have, but I will probably live having missed that as well.

So, this last week has been fairly calm. W recovered from his ear infection in record time. The doctor told me to keep him home Thursday and Friday last week to give his body time to recover. Well, at 9am Thursday I was thinking that the doctor obviously doesn't know my kids as well as I do. We did go to lunch with MandM and Miss S. After he finished eating W looked a little tired, but the rest of the day he was full of energy...and well, you know, that stuff that all guys are full of. So, Friday it was off to school for him.

D had a good weekend. I didn't see much of him Sunday. He had moved his truck down to the shed and I just assumed he was changing oil or something. When he came back up at the end of the day I mentioned maybe going out to pick up a pizza. He said if I wanted pizza I had to drive since he had about 5 beers that afternoon. When I asked what he'd been doing in the shed he got a little uppity. He informed me that he was sitting in the shed (or as he called it, his man cave) drinking beer and rocking out to his 8 track tapes. I have to admit, my jaw kind of hit the floor. I mean, what a weird way to spend the day. And you know he knew it was weird since he was instantly defensive. When I was able to speak again I told him that was going in my blog. I didn't think he could sound more defensive, but he did. He told me to just go ahead and put it in. He was sure that Mini Mehe's husband would totally relate. Of course he's so young that he may not know what an 8 track is...

We have a busy weekend lined up. Tonight W and his scouts are in the holiday parade. (We didn't do a float this year, so just lanterns and glow sticks. Next year though...I think someone told me there was a $100 cash prize for first place.) Tomorrow W has his first wrestling meet. It's here in town, so that's nice. We were told that there would be somewhere around 300 wrestlers. It's double elimination, so every kid gets to wrestle at least twice. I expect that will be W's magic number. He sure has a lot of fun with it, but he doesn't understand the concept of not getting pinned yet.

Next week will be a little different. W has no school on Monday. Hmmm, thought that early release on Wednesday was supposed to eliminate those in-service days. Oh well, that means no cub scouts...but unfortunately with Christmas vacation we only have 2 regular meetings this month. I'm hoping that we can get together with MandM and Miss S for lunch soon.

So, I hope everyone has a good week. You will have to check back later for my recipe of the week. I haven't thought of what to post yet...