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Nov. 26th, 2007 11:46 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
eee1313This past weekend was really pretty good. I don't remember what happened on Wednesday night after work, but Thursday morning we got up at 4:15 to head to Michigan. The Scientist and I caravaned in our car with his parents and sister in another, and his brother and his family in a third. We took the new Veterans' Memorial Tollway on the way out of town, and it's phenomenal. Before when we'd go to Michigan, we had to take I-355 south to I-55 east to I-294/80 east down into Indiana. Now we can just take I-355 south until it dead ends into I-80. This saved us at least a half hour if not more in driving time. Hooray!
Anyway, after a stop for breakfast at IHOP, we made our way up to Grand Rapids. His grandmother and aunt live there, and just like last year, both sides of his family congregated there for Thanksgiving. There was turkey, ham, two kinds of stuffing, about nine pies, tons of side dishes... Just a lot of food and a lot of people. Unlike last year, I didn't feel all out of place and uncomfortable because I was new. It was a MUCH better Thanksgiving visit with his family.
After eating the big lunch around 1:30, we hung out for a while longer checking the Black Friday ads. Then at 4:00 we hopped in the car to head down to my parents' house in Plainwell. It was really great to see them again; the past few times that I've seen my parents we've only had about an hour together. Their house looks pretty good now that it's getting unpacked and decorated. (Their poor lawn, however, is a different story. The lawn guy recommended just leaving it be until after the winter snows.) One set of my cousins was already there with their two kids, and we all sat down for Thanksgiving dinner. Yup, that means the Scientist and I had TWO turkey dinners that day. After dinner another set of cousins showed up with their two kids, and all four kids plus the Scientist went downstairs while we cleaned up. After much screaming, I went downstairs to find the Scientist on his knees, being tackled and pummelled by the boys. He spent the rest of the night teaching them wrestling moves and football drills and making up games for everyone to play. Needless to say, he fell into bed at 9:30 and passed out.
I stayed up for dessert with everyone, and we all sat around talking and telling stories. Eventually all of my cousins left, and I settled in with my parents to talk and relax. I went to bed around 11:30, and at 2:30 the alarms went off so that the Scientist could get up, get showered and dressed, and head off into the cold, black morning to do Black Friday shopping with his family in Grand Rapids. I slept in till about 8:30, at which point I went upstairs to hang out with Mom. Eventually we got our butts in gear, just in time for the Scientist to return. He went to nap some more while she and I headed to the nursing home to see Grandma. I think my grandma recognized me for about two seconds, as her face lit up briefly and then went blank. But she looks healthy and says that the people at the home are very nice, so that's about all you can ask for in this situation, really. We stayed for about 15 minutes, tops. It's hard to hold a conversation with someone who doesn't remember you and keeps drifting off. I'm glad I went to see her, though.
After that, we went back home and had a big lunch of leftovers. The Scientist and I didn't leave my parents' house until after 4 pm, which was about four hours after we thought we'd head home. But it was really good just to spend time with them, especially since they don't really know him all that well. They know what I have to say about him, but they don't really get to see him just relax and be himself. After gorging ourselves at lunch, we headed home to a blissfully snow- and traffic-free drive. Overall, it was a great trip.
On Saturday the Scientist and I spent the day prepping for Christmas. First we went to Home Depot to get these awesome path lights. Then we headed to Sam's Club next door (evil, I know, but his dad's company pays for the membership, not us) and bought some food and LED lights to hang on our garage. We checked out a ladder there but decided to go back to Home Depot next door to buy one there instead. However, upon seeing how short the ladder actually was, we went back to Sam's and bought it there instead. ($20 more for another 6'. Not bad.) Then we went home and unloaded all of the Christmas decorations from the garage rafter storage. We staked the lights outside, and then discovered that we couldn't hang the lights from the garage gutters like we had hoped, so there was another trip to Home Depot. Thank God it's just a five-minute drive! So we got all of the outside decorating done, and then moved indoors to do decorating there.
The Scientist and I couldn't agree on whose tree to use for the holidays. His is very pretty, with white lights, red, gold, green, and clear glass bulbs, silver and gold garland, icicles, and a gorgeous glass star on top. Very elegant. Mine has multi-colored lights, all kinds of crazy ornaments, and is basically a big old hysterical mess. So we decided to do both. I unpacked his ornaments on Saturday while he hung them all up, and the tree was complete in just over an hour. Then we hung blue icicle lights in our living room window. We wrapped up just in time to go pick up![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
fava_bean for dinner. The three of us went to the new Sweet Tomatoes for dinner. It was absolutely packed. Wall-to-wall people. No chance of seconds at the salad buffet, so we just grabbed two plates to start. Heh. After that we came home to watch Ocean's Thirteen (because Enchanted didn't start for another hour, and we didn't feel like waiting).
Yesterday while the Scientist was at work, I assembled my tree and started decorating. Of course, I discovered that almost all of my strands of lights were half out, so there was—yet again—another trip to Home Depot. Holy crap, we should just move in there already. Anyway, I decided this year not to hang ALL of my ornaments. There are many of which I have duplicates, and so I left those in the box and just hung two of each style. Right now I just have about a dozen ornaments left to hang, and then icicles and garland and it's done. I also put out the creche on our buffet next to my tree, and it looks very nice. Then last night, after having dinner with his parents, the Scientist helped me bring down my light-up Christmas houses. I assembled those in the living room on top of his old entertainment center under the window, and along the sideboard next to the front door. So now we're all done with Christmas decorating, and it only took two days. I'm amazed. Of course, we have to put all the boxes back in the garage, but that shouldn't be too bad.
So yeah, that's about it for me. I hope you all had good holiday weekends. And as for your Canadians, you already had your Thanksgiving, so I hope you just had a good regular weekend.
PS—Does anyone happen to know of a Charlie Brown Christmas mood theme? Or just a good holiday mood theme in general? I saw the awesome one thatswsa is using, but seeing as how I don't know a few of the holiday specials it references, I don't want to use it. Any help?
Anyway, after a stop for breakfast at IHOP, we made our way up to Grand Rapids. His grandmother and aunt live there, and just like last year, both sides of his family congregated there for Thanksgiving. There was turkey, ham, two kinds of stuffing, about nine pies, tons of side dishes... Just a lot of food and a lot of people. Unlike last year, I didn't feel all out of place and uncomfortable because I was new. It was a MUCH better Thanksgiving visit with his family.
After eating the big lunch around 1:30, we hung out for a while longer checking the Black Friday ads. Then at 4:00 we hopped in the car to head down to my parents' house in Plainwell. It was really great to see them again; the past few times that I've seen my parents we've only had about an hour together. Their house looks pretty good now that it's getting unpacked and decorated. (Their poor lawn, however, is a different story. The lawn guy recommended just leaving it be until after the winter snows.) One set of my cousins was already there with their two kids, and we all sat down for Thanksgiving dinner. Yup, that means the Scientist and I had TWO turkey dinners that day. After dinner another set of cousins showed up with their two kids, and all four kids plus the Scientist went downstairs while we cleaned up. After much screaming, I went downstairs to find the Scientist on his knees, being tackled and pummelled by the boys. He spent the rest of the night teaching them wrestling moves and football drills and making up games for everyone to play. Needless to say, he fell into bed at 9:30 and passed out.
I stayed up for dessert with everyone, and we all sat around talking and telling stories. Eventually all of my cousins left, and I settled in with my parents to talk and relax. I went to bed around 11:30, and at 2:30 the alarms went off so that the Scientist could get up, get showered and dressed, and head off into the cold, black morning to do Black Friday shopping with his family in Grand Rapids. I slept in till about 8:30, at which point I went upstairs to hang out with Mom. Eventually we got our butts in gear, just in time for the Scientist to return. He went to nap some more while she and I headed to the nursing home to see Grandma. I think my grandma recognized me for about two seconds, as her face lit up briefly and then went blank. But she looks healthy and says that the people at the home are very nice, so that's about all you can ask for in this situation, really. We stayed for about 15 minutes, tops. It's hard to hold a conversation with someone who doesn't remember you and keeps drifting off. I'm glad I went to see her, though.
After that, we went back home and had a big lunch of leftovers. The Scientist and I didn't leave my parents' house until after 4 pm, which was about four hours after we thought we'd head home. But it was really good just to spend time with them, especially since they don't really know him all that well. They know what I have to say about him, but they don't really get to see him just relax and be himself. After gorging ourselves at lunch, we headed home to a blissfully snow- and traffic-free drive. Overall, it was a great trip.
On Saturday the Scientist and I spent the day prepping for Christmas. First we went to Home Depot to get these awesome path lights. Then we headed to Sam's Club next door (evil, I know, but his dad's company pays for the membership, not us) and bought some food and LED lights to hang on our garage. We checked out a ladder there but decided to go back to Home Depot next door to buy one there instead. However, upon seeing how short the ladder actually was, we went back to Sam's and bought it there instead. ($20 more for another 6'. Not bad.) Then we went home and unloaded all of the Christmas decorations from the garage rafter storage. We staked the lights outside, and then discovered that we couldn't hang the lights from the garage gutters like we had hoped, so there was another trip to Home Depot. Thank God it's just a five-minute drive! So we got all of the outside decorating done, and then moved indoors to do decorating there.
The Scientist and I couldn't agree on whose tree to use for the holidays. His is very pretty, with white lights, red, gold, green, and clear glass bulbs, silver and gold garland, icicles, and a gorgeous glass star on top. Very elegant. Mine has multi-colored lights, all kinds of crazy ornaments, and is basically a big old hysterical mess. So we decided to do both. I unpacked his ornaments on Saturday while he hung them all up, and the tree was complete in just over an hour. Then we hung blue icicle lights in our living room window. We wrapped up just in time to go pick up
fava_bean for dinner. The three of us went to the new Sweet Tomatoes for dinner. It was absolutely packed. Wall-to-wall people. No chance of seconds at the salad buffet, so we just grabbed two plates to start. Heh. After that we came home to watch Ocean's Thirteen (because Enchanted didn't start for another hour, and we didn't feel like waiting).Yesterday while the Scientist was at work, I assembled my tree and started decorating. Of course, I discovered that almost all of my strands of lights were half out, so there was—yet again—another trip to Home Depot. Holy crap, we should just move in there already. Anyway, I decided this year not to hang ALL of my ornaments. There are many of which I have duplicates, and so I left those in the box and just hung two of each style. Right now I just have about a dozen ornaments left to hang, and then icicles and garland and it's done. I also put out the creche on our buffet next to my tree, and it looks very nice. Then last night, after having dinner with his parents, the Scientist helped me bring down my light-up Christmas houses. I assembled those in the living room on top of his old entertainment center under the window, and along the sideboard next to the front door. So now we're all done with Christmas decorating, and it only took two days. I'm amazed. Of course, we have to put all the boxes back in the garage, but that shouldn't be too bad.
So yeah, that's about it for me. I hope you all had good holiday weekends. And as for your Canadians, you already had your Thanksgiving, so I hope you just had a good regular weekend.
PS—Does anyone happen to know of a Charlie Brown Christmas mood theme? Or just a good holiday mood theme in general? I saw the awesome one that
swsa is using, but seeing as how I don't know a few of the holiday specials it references, I don't want to use it. Any help?