Saturday, December 22, 2007

Family time = Good time

This week was one I'll remember for a long, long time. As I mentioned before, my brother came from California and we all managed to get together and have a good "family Christmas" a little bit early.

Wednesday was a crazy day. I had to take my car in first thing in the morning - the alarm was going off so many times during the night that we finally had to unhook the battery. From there I came home, baked a birthday cake for Mel, prepared the dressing, stuffed the turkey, prepared a cranberry Jell-O salad, got the turkey in the oven, and decorated the cake. Matt and Mirisa came over early, so I put him to work peeling the potatoes. Being the man he is, he delegated the job to Mirisa - men! Dad and Pam arrived shortly afterward and Pam helped Mirisa - thanks to them we had potatoes for dinner. Don't ask about gravy though... lol!

Marc wanted to surprise dad and be here when dad got here, but dad was early - wouldn't you know it? Right after dad and Pam came in I got a call from Marc on my cell phone, "Don't tell me that was dad and Pam that just walked in!" He had parked down the street and was walking up to the house when they pulled up, so he hid behind the tree in the front yard so they wouldn't see him. While dad was busy talking to Steve I went and let Marc in the front door - he came up behind dad and kept tapping him on the shoulder until he turned around! What a surprise for him! We'd been trying to keep Marc's arrival a secret, even going so far as to post on both our blogs that he wouldn't be able to come back until after the first of the year... I think dad was quite surprised! I'm sure we'll be forgiven for our little white lies. lol

Mel brought cookies, sweet potatoes, and green bean casserole to add to the food, so we had lots of good things to eat. Steve didn't think he could get the turkey out of the pan, so I had no drippings for gravy (I should have gotten the turkey that has the little packet you mix with water - next time I'll remember that!). That was the only thing that went wrong, so I can't complain! It was so good to have all of us together again! We took a lot of pictures - most of them you can see
here.

Thursday we (Marc, dad and myself) were going to try to attend the memorial service when Von Maur reopened, but we didn't quite make it. It worked out okay though, we picked up AJ (nephew) and then went to Westroads. We did a little shopping then met Amber for lunch at Granite City - yummy. We dropped AJ back off at his car, did a little more shopping at Kohls, went to dad's for a bit and then Marc took me to get my car. We met at my house again for a little bit and then Marc and dad left. Steve and I had to go to his stepmom's house to drop off her Christmas present. She's Italian and always bakes tons of Christmas cookies, including yummy cannoli, so that really wasn't a hardship. We were going to take her out to dinner, but she had already eaten when Steve called her, so we ended up just having some cookies and visiting with her. By the time we got home on Thursday I was soooo tired and achy. The whirlpool would have felt wonderful, but I was too tired. I put my pajamas on and don't even remember my head hitting the pillow.

Marc called me on Friday morning and he, dad, and myself met at Mimi's Cafe for breakfast. I love that place. We said our goodbyes from there - I thought that was a good idea, you know, no crying and all that stuff. It didn't' quite work that way, dad was more than a little misty eyed. Okay, okay, so was I! But it was much better than going to the airport! I'm a sap when people leave, so sue me.

I was thinking Marc was just getting out in the nick of time since we had a winter storm warning issued Friday, but nothing came of it. Not one snowflake. Darn it. He was still 2 hours late leaving though.

The entire 3 days when by in a total whirlwind. I was so glad to finally get a chance to spend some time with Marc and get to know him as an adult instead of the pesky little brother who was always getting into my stuff. At least it felt that way. He's done a great job of growing up and he's very successful and happy with his life, which makes me proud of him. That's one thing that seemed to always be missing when we were younger, our mom and dad never really told us they were proud of us - and occasionally we did do things to be proud of! We've all grown up to be responsible adults, we have good kids, we have good jobs, and we're good people - in spite of everything. And that's a lot to be proud of!

I had to go back to work last night. Talk about a rude awakening! I worked 8 hours last night and I've worked 6 hours today and I haven't yet caught up with yesterday's work. The docs apparently were trying to get a lot of stuff done before the holidays too! So, speaking of work, I better get back to it. I have to work tomorrow and Monday (all day too, doesn't that suck?) and then I'm off for Christmas. Yay! Then I only work Wednesday and Thursday and I have a 3-day weekend! I like weeks like that!

1 comment:

Meg: said...

Ha! After all that, you'll NEED the three day weekend!