Happy 44th Birthday, Tracey Landry!
Cassie and I didn’t get to help Rowen, Tim, and his family with celebrating his Mom’s special day, but we did go in on a gift with them; and offered our best wishes while we were all at church today.
After being busy with our own families and friends day and night over the past few days, winding down the holiday weekend with all of the work that has gone into helping our weekend guests to pack up and head home has been very different – though we’ve still had fun too. Spending time with people we likely won’t get to see again until May or later was great, and while the work and then the follow-up chores weren’t as much fun; that was the least we could do to help out around the house – especially when I haven’t done as much as I should while juggling the extra help I offered to my own family including during the party at the Inn on New Year’s Eve.
This report is being done between the last of the clean-up chores and dinner because we’ll be busy with a last round of family fun tonight before we head for St. Louis in the morning. Cassie, May, and I are looking forward to our visit with Lee and his family – especially when none of us have gotten to do much travelling beyond to-and-from college in more than a year. We’ll only be there for a few days, but Ethan and Ehlana are back to school again tomorrow; so this is the best time for that trip; and May has been missing Lee more than she wants to admit to anyone.
Cassie’s sure that they’re a match, but we’ll try not to scare our friends too-soon with that knowledge – or with everything else that we see for their future!
That’s going to be it for today. Cassie’s nearly finished taking her turn getting cleaned up from our chores; her grandparents will be here soon to join us for dinner too because they’ll be heading south again for the rest of the winter; and then we’ll split the rest of our time tonight between here and Jake and Stephanie’s house. We’re still getting used to that change with my family, but they’re amazingly-happy; Sierra is adorable; and I’m only a little jealous that my big brother has moved on to yet another stage in his life that puts him into a club that I won’t be joining for quite a while.
Then again, it is fun being able to play with their baby and then give her back when we’re tired; so that does work out nicely for us so far too!
More-seriously, we are going to miss Sierra while we’re away this week. She has us wrapped around her little finger already; and it is going to be tough to miss out on so much of her first few years while we’ll be busy and away at school so much of the time. That’s something to deal with later, though, and I really do need to get going again; so that’s all for today.
Michael Stone
