This has been an insanely, crazy-busy day!
I’m saying that, and didn’t even have major
events going on – like bringing a new baby home from the clinic; like Aunt
Deborah and Uncle Nick did this afternoon.
I did have a cheerleading practice after school; help Mom with some last
minute work around the house; and then be part of two welcoming committees for
incoming family at our house and at Michael’s too. He had football practice and then helped out
with the dinner rush at the Inn before meeting up with me to play host for his
incoming family; so he wasn’t exactly bored either.
I’m going to skip the school report, since
it was the day before a holiday weekend; and we mostly just played anyway. We were given some homework; but nothing
major – and we can deal with that on Sunday after our guests head for home. Our cheerleading practice was still on today
because we can’t do a practice tomorrow and the game is at noon on Friday; but
we basically just ran through our routine a few times and fine-tuned it before
calling it a school-week.
Once I got home, Mom put me to work taking
care of some chores that she didn’t get done today while helping Uncle Nick out
with some work at their house to finish getting ready for Sebastian – and she
took a turn with Leah too. Ethan and
Ehlana were at KidZone for most of the day with Naomi and Aiden; but were home
again by the time I got there. Mom had
also done the supply and grocery shopping; and had everything put away by then
too; so our work was mostly along the lines of a final once-over of bathrooms; bedrooms;
and the main floor before the Rice family arrived. We just did a snack dinner after Dad got home;
and then we had our first incoming arrivals – Violet, Dillon, Dawn, Chris, and
Martin.
They’d left as soon as my younger cousins
were out of school instead of waiting for Uncle Rick, Aunt Melissa, and their
grandparents; and while they could have all gone in Violet’s car; Chris and
Martin drove their car too – supposedly so that their parents and grandparents
could come in one vehicle together and still have enough room for everyone for
the return trip to Woodvale when Violet and Dillon wouldn’t be going with them.
I loved getting to spend some time with
Violet, Dillon, and Dawn, but Violet and Dillon didn’t stay very long before
going on to have a visit with his family; and I needed to go with Michael not
long after he joined us so that we could take care of a few minor chores at his
house before his guests arrived. We
invited Dawn along, but she opted to hang out with Ethan and Ehlana instead of
sitting around and watching us work – or joining in to help. We’ve had a couple of hours of chat time that
just ended a little while ago, though; so we made up for that time I couldn’t
spend here earlier.
While I would have loved to spend more time
at home, this was one of those times when Michael needed me there for his
family; and I’m okay with that too.
Getting to spend some time with his new baby cousin was a blast too;
though it also reminded me that I’ve had zero time with Sebastian today – and probably
won’t even see him much this weekend while his entire family is here competing
for time with him – and with Leah and Zack.
Michael’s grandparents, aunt, uncle, and
cousins all arrived together in a three-vehicle convoy. His aunt, uncle, and working cousins all left
work a bit early, but they still have a six hour drive on a good day; and they
were on the road for nearly seven and a half today – a particularly tough trip
for the two kids and their parents. I’m
sure that had a lot to do with why our offer to take care of both kids while
the adults settled in and relaxed was so readily accepted. Michael played with one and a half-year old
Gerry, and the toddler was fired up with energy to burn after all of those
boring hours in the car. I cuddled with
baby Annie after her Mom, Heidi, nursed her; and she was wide awake for quite a
while too after sleeping through the last part of their trip. Annie – Annette – is just coming up on three
weeks old now; so she was quite content to just watch the action and let me
hold her. That made my job a lot easier
than Michael’s; but he managed to keep up with his busy little cousin.
I’ll guess that at least some of the
members of his family are having a long night, since Annie is apparently only
sleeping for no more than a couple of hours a night; but Miranda will probably
help Heidi and her husband, Drew, with the baby – at least for tonight when she
won’t need to be at the Inn first thing in the morning. Eric and Sally probably have Gerry sleeping
by now as I write this; but he was still bouncing off the walls when I came
home at eleven o’clock.
Rebecca joined us after staying later than
Michael did at the Inn, and then Jacob and Miranda got home at a bit after ten
by the time they’d made sure that their guests at the Inn had everything they
needed; and the dining room and kitchen were set up and ready to go for the
Black Friday buffet breakfast. Jacob’s
work wasn’t done for the night yet, but they both took a break for a visit with
his parents and the rest of his family before he needed to do some prep work
for their Thanksgiving Day dinner.
Sometimes, I have no idea how Michael’s
parents keep up with everything – they really are amazing!
Moving along, I stayed and played with
Michael and his family, as I mentioned, until eleven, and then spent a few minutes
on the front porch saying goodnight to him in a mostly non-verbal sort of way
before coming home. Our guests were
mostly ready to head to bed by then, so my living room visit with the parents
and grandparents was fairly short.
Oh yeah – welcome home, Grandma and
Grandpa! We didn’t get to visit much
today, since you were doing dinner with Uncle Adam, Aunt Leanne, and Zack
tonight; but we’ll catch up sometime this weekend before you head back to
Arizona again until Christmas – hopefully.
Chris and Martin had been in the lounge by
then for hours; and had Jonathan with them pretty much from the time he got to
town with his parents. I haven’t seen
any of the McEwans or Johnsons yet; but I’m sure we’ll spend some time together
tomorrow too. With everyone here, I
should be able to spend about two minutes with each person before bedtime. ;^)
It has been nice hanging out with Dawn,
though; and we spent part of our time after coming upstairs for the night
sitting in the lounge and talking while watching the boys play their games. We talked with them too, but that wasn’t as
interesting for Dawn as it was for me; since she’s stuck with two out of three
of the boys year-round – at least until Chris starts college next summer. Now that’s a scary thought! Also on the scary list is hearing about all
three guys and their current dating status; with the scariest part of that
being that I’m the cousin in the group with the longest-lasting relationship –
and by a big margin. The next closest is
Chris, and he’s not sure whether he’ll still have the same girlfriend by
Christmas.
I’m not going to go there, or make a big
deal of it with them, but I really hope that none of my cousins are part of the
teen group of both guys and girls who do pre-Christmas break-ups just to avoid
spending money on gifts. Call it a pet
peeve or whatever; but I think that kind of thing is fairly rotten.
On the girl-cousin side of our chat time
tonight, Dawn is not in a steady relationship right now, but she is hanging out
with a guy in a non-dating sort of way so that she isn’t a third wheel with
Jillian and her boyfriend when they want to do things together. She likes boys just fine – but just doesn’t
have anyone she’s seriously interested in right now. Dawn has other, bigger dreams – like learning
to fly airplanes and becoming a pilot.
They boys are still gaming in the lounge,
and Jonathan is staying overnight, but Dawn ran out of steam a little while
ago; which allowed me to do my bedtime computing – and this journal
update. There’s so much going on around
the family that there’s no way for me to cover it all here; but I’m sure that
most important news will make it into the archives somewhere with all of the
sources we have now – whether that’s through personal or child-progress
journals or everything else we collect for the archives now.
I’m going to be attempting to juggle four
family Thanksgivings tomorrow, though, and need to get some sleep now; so that’s
it for tonight, and until next time...
...May the Magi Force be with you!
