Week in a Flash

Okay, fine, so it's been more than a week. But hey, it's been chock-full of all sorts of things. First it was the Thanksgiving holiday where Ian didn't have school for a week or so. Then it was picking up Gramma and Papaw from the airport and driving home to set them up on our not-so-comfortable sofa bed. They braved it (and the whole sharing-one-bathroom thing) like champs. And had a great time with the kids in the process.


Then it was that frantic, nerve-wracking "Oh-no-I'm-a-grownup" revelation you get when you realize that you are solely responsible for Thanksgiving and even if your helper and confidence-booster (I love my Mom) happens to make a boo-boo, it happened at your house and will be remembered for all time as YOUR boo-boo. But we didn't have any boo-boos at all, unless you count my really runny sweet potato bake (okay, fine, so I cheated and used canned sweet taters instead of fresh).
But it all turned out swimmingly.


And it happened to be my honey's birthday. We just loooove pumpkin pie.



I don't really remember what all happened after that, other than a visit to McDonald's so the kids could pig out on Happy Meals and play with their puzzlingly annoying Happy Meal Toys (Shrek the Halls was SO last year, and what is it with the Madagascar talking figures? Thank the LORD they come with an off switch!).

Sunday it snowed. And we went to Devil's Den to cuddle up to the fireplace in our gorgeous cabin.



When the snow finally melted a little, though the temperature never felt like it went up any, we went for a hike to see the caves.



Devil's Den itself was closed due to the hibernation of endangered Ozark bats, but

there were several other caves, crevices, etc for us to explore. Once we thought that Chris was stuck but he explored a cave that came out at a cave we had been in previously and had to hike back to where we were. He got to carry the baby backpack, so I think it was his way of demanding a break. The kids and I waited for he and JD to explore and sat out of the wind eating snacks with Gramma.

It took a while to recover after that hike, but at least we had a nice cozy cabin and some stew in the crock pot to go back to. Aaaah.
We left early Tuesday and then had to take Gramma and Papaw back to the airport. The house was bigger and a lot quieter after we got back, but that may have had something to do with the earplugs I had jammed into my ears after having endured that many hours in the car with the kids. Anyway, Wednesday was back to school and back to the routine. And back to doing laundry. It is still a mystery to me how we can be gone for 2 days and come back with 7 loads of laundry. No, really.




Tomorrow is the annual Christmas parade, which Ian would rather watch than be in (the church float) and then the school's Winter Wonderland Carnival, where we will see Santa. I am curious to see what Ian puts on his list.