Ethan, Ehlana, Naomi, and Aiden:
Happy 24th Birthday, Rebecca!
Happy 9th Birthday, Caleb!
Tai Chi was skipped this morning because we wanted the extra time to get ready for the breakfast buffet at the Inn. With more than one-hundred shoppers converging there along with at least that many more diners getting in on the special deal and probably double that total for the rest of the morning; we happily shared that culinary adventure with a lot of our favorite people before even getting started on the main shopping and birthday events! We helped out with some of the youngest cousins and kids during that meal; enjoyed the food; and will only add that our toddlers made less of a mess than Zack, Eli, and some of the other guys around our ages! There was birthday fun for Rebecca and Caleb during breakfast, but while Luke was brought along on the trip; Rebecca stayed for the Pizzeria.
When we hit the road, Sophia and Aaron were matched up with Cassie and Michael for the drive; and they collectively had Sierra, Stuart, and Luke with them in a borrowed minivan. The four of us went with Mom and Hannah; and we won’t list all of the groups; since there is always a list kept elsewhere in the archives if you’re really that bored! We should mention that Mom and Aunt Leanne had help getting quite a few fathers to help out today; and we only had most of the Moms in our family because of Caleb’s birthday party.
The drive to the mall was uneventful and entertaining; we got right to the shopping with our designated group of six tweens and Leah, Hailey, Brianna, and Faith; and we blasted our way around the mall with dozens of cameo moments with most of our favorite people along the way! We were never far from parents or other adults, but didn’t need any help as we checked off items on our gift lists. Aiden, Aaron, and I helped with one load of purchases out to Dad’s truck and Mom’s minivan before lunch; the ten of us stayed together for lunch in the food court – paid for by the tweens; and then we had another hour to shop before we moved on to our favorite toy store. Our group was reunited for that next round of shopping, but we didn’t actually need much time at the toy store – beyond getting to check out some of the toys in-person. The biggest change from previous Christmas shopping trips was that we next had a short time-limit for the stop at Wal-Mart – or at least some of us did; since we needed to move on to Caleb’s birthday dinner. We still managed to finish up our shopping with a handful of final purchases that for Ehlana and I were mostly for our extended group of classmates and friends.
Caleb chose a fast food restaurant for dinner, and while some of the adults might have loved a better menu; timing was an issue too; since we needed to eat and then move on to SportsFusion for the play parts of his party. Let’s mention here that Cassie and Michael had their tweens and kids with them and joined us for the meal, but then they headed home so that they could get in on some of Rebecca’s birthday fun that was happening around her work at the Pizzeria. Sophia and Aaron stayed with them; and they are spending the night there too while also helping out with the kids so that Rebecca, Lucas, Jake, and Stephanie get to have a kid-free night. We stayed with the party-goers to help out with kid control; had most of the girls with us for the dinner; and then Aiden and I helped with Caleb and the boys at SportsFusion while Ehlana and Naomi played with the girls. The parents did let us have a half-hour of tween time for a rock wall climb and zip line ride, but we were busy for all of the nearly three hours we were at the play center; and then it was time to load up and head for home. Shockingly to nobody, another fast food stop was requested by the boys; those orders were picked up to go; and some of us were ready to wind down with an hour and a half of quiet cuddling and post-adventures chat time. Hannah took care of the driving; we dropped her off at home first and unloaded the few things that she had in the minivan; and then moved on to our house and got the rest of the minivan unloaded. We can skip the details of the deliveries that Dad and some of the other drivers needed to do around town to multiple homes, but that took a while for Dad; so we had time to sort through our purchases and put them away or set them aside for pick-up by Sophia, Aaron, and others sometime tomorrow by the time Dad got home and we repeated the process with everything left in his truck. It was past-midnight by then, so our ‘today’ references to this point are actually a day in our past now, but let’s not quibble about that tonight. Once the work was done, we had a little chat with Mom and Dad; we all came upstairs, and while it was late already; Jacuzzi or shower time was needed after a long day of shopping and sports play fun. The four of us are back together now as we’re writing this; there are Christmas music videos playing; and we’re enjoying the co-ed cuddle time while winding down toward another sofa sleepover. We’ve skipped over a lot of details, but don’t want to stay up all night writing about our day – so we won’t do that and wrap this up instead.
Our last ‘task’ for this report is to choose our Christmas music video of the day, and for our second day of December; we’ll go with our favorite children’s choir and our favorite-so-far Christmas song from them! We used it on our own album too; and hope that you love it – and maybe even get to be that kind of happy through the rest of the year!
Home for the Holidays – One Voice Children’s Choir
Until next time, live with love, fellow Magi of the Light!
