This has been a day full of contrasts; starting with having
our family Christmas while the weather practically felt more like early spring
and had our Christmas snow melting fast.
It’s colder again now as I write this, and is supposed to stay cold for
the rest of the weekend; which is a good thing considering some winter fun
plans we should have finalized by tomorrow morning sometime. I’ll get to that news in a bit; but let’s
back up and keep this update in order.
Michael came over for Tai Chi this morning, but went home
again and then on to the Inn to help out with the breakfast rush there while I
was busy at home with the work involved for making breakfast; cleaning up; and
helping with Ethan, Ehlana, and Jayden.
The warmer weather made playing outdoors quite a bit messier; but we –
the kids – spent most of the morning doing some tobogganing and playing around
in the quickly dwindling supply of snow around the yards at my house; Uncle
Adam and Aunt Leanne’s; and Uncle Mark and Aunt Grace’s. Rowen only stayed for a bit of that fun
before going on to the computer store to help out there; but Dawn and I had
some help from the older teen cousins; and some of the parents joined in to
either go sledding too or while we played in the back yards and had a couple of
snowball fights.
Having the temperature warm enough for spring jackets
instead of snow suits had a lot to do with us staying out longer than we
probably should have; and we were all fairly cold and very wet by the time we
were ordered indoors for hot chocolate and a lunchtime snack. We did that at two houses, and Dawn and I had
most of the younger girls while most of the boys, including Ethan and Jayden,
did that at Uncle Adam and Aunt Leanne’s.
That worked for all of us – especially since it meant not having video
games going on in the lounge for the entire afternoon. There was still football bowl games being
watched in the living room, but about half of our collective families are guys;
so that’s hardly a surprise when a big family day lands on a big football day.
I’m not going to write about all of the football chatter or
news from today, but for those of you who have a warm place in your hearts for
Notre Dame; congratulations – your team won their bowl game today!
We were only snacking for lunch because we had our Christmas
dinners at mid-afternoon. At our house,
that meant we sat down to eat right about the same time that Notre Dame game
ended. That was partially because Mom
wouldn’t have been able to drag some of the guys away from the game anyway;
though we also didn’t finish rounding up our dinner guests and sending some of
the Johnson-McEwan clan over to Uncle Adam and Aunt Leanne’s until then. Both dining rooms at our house and theirs
were full, but I still missed having Uncle Adam, Aunt Leanne, and Zack with us
for the meal while they were busy with the other half of their family. Michael was here to help me out with that,
though; and we had fun while he was on an extended break from the Inn so he
could do that – and the gift exchange – with me.
Michael, Dawn, and I were not given kid control duty during
dinner tonight; and we got to spend that time with Violet, Dillon, Chris, and
Martin instead. That meant a lot of
football and video game talk with the guys, but that was also when we started
talking about a potential teen snowboarding day for next week. Considering the weather today, that seemed a
bit strange, but it wasn’t as warm up at the Blue Ridge Ski
Center; they had more
snow to start with; and will be making more tonight and tomorrow. I checked a little while ago, and all runs
are expected to be open tomorrow; so once we have full parental approval the
trip should be on.
Making those plans really was my favorite part of our dinner
chat, but the food was awesome too; and most of us managed to somehow eat too
much again. While we didn’t have kid
duty during dinner; we were all on the clean-up crew. The grandparents were in charge of the
younger kids while we did that, but since opening gifts needed to wait until we
were finished the work; we had regular visits from my brother, sister, and
cousins urging us to hurry up so we could get back to the fun.
It’s a good thing that we’re drawing names now for everyone
or we’d need a full day just to open gifts.
That was a fun hour or so of holiday entertainment, but I can’t help but
think that our collective gift exchange ends up being too much. I know my perspective on that is different
than most because of the years when Christmases were just with Mom and me; but
I think it seemed like a lot more this year because of the added gift exchanges
with Michael and his family in addition to mine. It’s all wonderful and amazing too, and more
than my little-girl dreams ever imagined; so I’ll just leave those thoughts
there and be very grateful for all of my blessings.
Michael needed to go back to the Inn as we wrapped up the
gift exchange, so I walked there with him so we could have a few moments alone
before returning to the family fun. A
group of us did a visit to Uncle Adam and Aunt Leanne’s house; and ended up
exchanging some kids, teens, and adults again for part of the evening. There were kid and chick flick movies going
on in the lounge, and after getting home again; I stayed there with most of the
younger girls and we split our time between watching movies and playing with
new toys and games until Michael came over again after the Inn closed for the
night.
The rest of my evening was pretty much all football, cuddle
time with Michael, and chat time with everyone else watching the games in the
living room. Jake and Stephanie came
over with Michael to hang out with Violet, Dillon, Josiah, and Christina; and
we continued the dinnertime snowboarding chat with all of them. As I mentioned, we still need some parental
approvals, and there will be some other teens invited to go with us; but as
long as all of that is worked out; we’ll be going snowboarding for the day on
Monday!
While I really don’t want to write about the football games,
I should mention that there were four games today, and the last one started
late; which is why the teens and a few parents stayed up late again
tonight. The bonus time with Michael
definitely works for me; and with college or pro football going on pretty much
every day for the next week and change; we might even get some chances for
alone time where we can pretend to watch football while finding more
interesting entertainment for ourselves.
I might be thinking about that a lot now because we sure
didn’t have any opportunities for that tonight with a house full of family. We didn’t really even get a chance for much
of a goodnight kiss when Michael had Jake and Stephanie waiting for him when
all of the last group of guests headed home after the game ended. Dawn didn’t want to hang out with us in the
living room, and she’s sleeping in the lounge right now after passing out there
while trying to watch another movie after the other girls had either gone home
or off to bed. Mandy’s with her, so I
have my bed all to myself – something I definitely shouldn’t think about too
much right now.
Since it is late, I should probably skip writing or thinking
about anything else and just get what sleep I can before we’ll be up and
starting another of those wild and crazy Sunday church and family travel
days. As long as the snowboarding trip
gets approved, we’ll still have cousins staying here tomorrow night, but that
really won’t change the workload much; and I’m also planning on spending as
much time as I can helping out with the extra buffets at the Inn tomorrow too,
so it’s going to be busy pretty much all day.
All of that can wait until morning, and I’ll just shoot for some
unconscious time for now that will hopefully have a dash or two of happy dreams
that include Michael in a starring role; and us alone somewhere for some
uninterrupted play time.
Live long and prosper, fellow Magi of the Light!
