Thanksgiving Break 2009

Our Thanksgiving Break was a wonderful whirlwind of family, friends and some much-needed downtime. After the craziness that was last Thanksgiving Break I have to say that it was a relief to have a more relaxing experience this year! On Wednesday Riley went to daycare for the only time all week and his Grandmommy picked him up early and took him to the new Fort Worth Museum of Science and History along with his Great-Aunt Patrice who is in town. They had a fabulous time and sent pictures to prove it!

(Don't you know he was in heaven playing with all the trains?)

(Dinosaur bones!)

(What balance he has!)

I am excited because Grandmommy informed us that she got a family membership for 5 to the museum so I can’t wait to use it also and see what has changed at the museum! Thank you Grandmommy!

After their museum outing Riley spent the night at Grandmommy and Haha’s, where they are nice enough to let Riley play on top of their pool table! This makes Chad crazy as this pool table used to be his grandparents and he was NEVER allowed to play on top of it!

(Discussing pool with Haha!)

Chad spent 8 hours on Wednesday out at my Aunt Tami’s prepping food with her for Thanksgiving. My Memaw went with him and kept all the dishes clean as they worked! When I checked in with them at 3pm, they still had all the desserts left to prep, so since my work was nice enough to let us leave early (since the place was practically deserted!) I was able to go home and have a little “me” time. I caught up on some Tivo and just relaxed. My parents stopped by for a bit and offered to take us out to dinner, so when Chad called to say they were on their way home I suggested that we all meet up at Uncle Julio’s for dinner. Mom & Dad came to pick me up and then we met Chad & Memaw up there! Lots of my friends had the same idea as I ran into two friends I know as well as saw another across the restaurant and heard another was up there also, but didn’t see her. We were smart and since Chad & Memaw ate a late lunch the 5 of us split Fajitas for 2. It was the PERFECT amount of food and also saved us (er, Dad!) a lot on the bill! Chad was exhausted after so even though we had planned to watch a movie at home that night, I knew Chad would not make it through it.

On Thanksgiving Chad & I slept in and when we were ready to head to Aunt Tami & Uncle Todd’s we called to see if Riley had already gone down for a nap at Grandmommy & Haha’s. He had, so Grandmommy offered to bring him out to us in Weatherford when he woke up. This was so nice of her and while my family did miss that Riley was not with us at first, it did give Chad & I a chance to eat a relaxed meal before Riley arrived. When he got there he had a good time playing with Tami & Todd’s dog, Hannah, who will chase a laser beam across the floor for as long as you will aim it.

(Hannah getting ready for the laser chase!)

(The rest of us watching the Cowboy game)

Riley Scott also showed up a bit later and the boys, along with Chad & Rich had some fun (but tiring) time outside playing “Hide and Seek.” By then it was time to head on out to make it for dinner with the Jung’s at Chad’s Aunt Jannice & Uncle Dean’s in Benbrook. Riley only wanted to eat goldfish, but Chad & I enjoyed our second turkey meal of the day and I was so stuffed by the end of the day! We had a lot of fun watching Riley ride a tiny trike that used to be Chad’s cousin Madeline’s up to Madeline’s bedroom door, where she was inside with her friend. Riley would knock, say hello, ride the trike back down the hallway and then do it all over again! Madeline was very gracious to answer her door every time, even though as a high schooler I am sure there are way more fun ways she could have been spending her time! Before we left we put Riley in his pajamas and he fell asleep on the way home.

Friday was a much-needed low-key day of relaxing at the house. Chad had to help set up sound on Kids Who Care’s float for the Parade of Lights so he went to do that while Riley was still napping. When Riley woke up he wanted Daddy so we went to see Chad at work. After that we went home for some dinner and Chad went back out after the float was done to dissemble the sound from the float.

On Saturday morning Chad had to be up bright and early to make an 8am work call to re-do the lighted sculptures on Lancaster for TCU. Of course, since Chad was awake, Riley was awake, so I got up at 7am also. Around 8:30am we headed to Nana & Papa’s house to help them with their Christmas Tree and decorations. Grammy came over also to help and I’m glad she did! Not only did Nana put us both to work, but Grammy really got a chance to spend time with Riley outside of a restaurant at our usual lunches. I think she was surprised at how much he talks! He was very excited because Nana & Papa bought a train to go around their Christmas tree. After much negotiation they decided to put the train low down in the tree around the base so that Riley could play with it. I wish you all could have seen his face when the train was fully assembled. He was bouncing up and down he was so excited! The train says “All Aboard” and dings a bell and also stops to let “people” get on and off. It was a wonderland for a two year old boy obsessed with trains and I am sure the train will probably have to stay out long after Christmas is over!

(Focused hard, ringing his own choo-choo bell along with the train!)

Papa made burgers for lunch and Riley went down for a nice long nap. Grammy & I finished decorating the tree, which we forced Nana to help a bit with, and then Nana took Grammy home while I went outside and helped Papa with the last of the lights on the house. I couldn’t wait for Riley to see the house all lit up at night! The front of my parents house is so pretty anyway, but it looks even better when it’s all decked out for Christmas!

Just before Riley woke up I talked to Chad who was on a short break from the Lancaster job and he offered for us to join him at the job-site as I think he was missing us! When Riley woke up I asked him if he wanted to go to “Daddy’s work” and he started calling it “Riley’s work” so we just went with it. I loaded him in the car and we stopped at the house to meet up with Chad. We had a lot of fun at the job-site and Chad was nice enough to let Riley play with his lightboard, just like Daddy does. Riley didn’t understand when he needed to stop though, so I was thankful that we brought his camo car with us and while Chad finished his work Riley rode up and down Lancaster in front of the Post Office while I walked along with him. The sidewalks there are really wide and there was a part of the cement that ran perpendicular to the others and was skinny so I called it “Riley’s track” and he kept his car right there on the track! After Chad was done we went to La Familia for a quick dinner, before checking on Chad’s lights one more time on our way home. They looked really good and we are so blessed that he got asked to do this job twice this month!

(Riley's hand creeping up onto the board. He really wanted to help!)

Yesterday we again woke up fairly early. This works in our favor when we need to get our weekly grocery shopping done. Riley was not into the shopping at all this week. It is amazing how one week he can be so well behaved at the store and the next week it is like we brought a different child. He wanted to push the cart all alone, but since it is a cart with a toddler cart attached, it is hard to maneuver, even for an adult. Finally, Chad just picked Riley up, but then he cried and screamed about that. I guess he decided Dad was the enemy and Mom was not because he held out his crying arms to me and I ended up carrying him through the store the rest of the way, which was really tiring as we were only about halfway done with our shopping when this started. Thankfully, we picked up dog treats for the dogs and Riley became obsessed with carrying the treats and talking about giving them to the dogs so he forgot his earlier tantrum.

His mom obsession carried over to lunch at Lucile’s where he insisted he sit in my lap for most of lunch. It is so funny how on Thanksgiving he wanted nothing to do with me and was all about his Daddy and three days later he only wants Mommy. Lunch was good and even though Riley ended the meal hiding under the table, he was well-behaved for the most part and it was nice to see Grammy for two days in a row!

After lunch we headed home for Riley’s nap and I continued to read Dan Brown’s The Lost Symbol, which I am really enjoying and finding harder and harder to put down. Riley took an extremely long nap and after almost 4 hours we decided to wake him up. We spent the evening at Kate, Jason & Elizabeth’s where they made us a lovely spaghetti dinner and we had fun watching Riley and Elizabeth play. Elizabeth had a new train toy, which Riley commandeered and only wanted Elizabeth to play with if she was riding along behind him, which she didn’t care for all that much! Riley had so much fun that he didn’t want to go home and I think he would have stayed the night if we all would have let him. Yesterday morning he didn’t even want to go to school until we told him that Elizabeth would be there! I’m glad they are getting along so well as they will soon become older siblings and have that in common as well!

Last night we went to Nana & Papa's for dinner and so we could draw the winners of the quilt and fire pit raffles for Jake Remembered. Also, so we could just be together on what could have been a really hard day for all of us. We must have a lot of people praying for us as Mom & I were talking about how the day was not as hard as we expected it to be. While we were talking about this the lights in the room we were in surged and seemed to pulse for a second. It scared us and now we are joking that it was Jake letting us know he was listening! We're crazy, I know! We drew the raffle winners and congrats to Ben McBroom of NAI Huff Partners who won the fire pit and to Polly Hargrave of Halliburton who won the quilt. Nana & Papa made us a yummy dinner and then we headed home to bed. Hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving and found many things to be thankful for! Can you believe it's December already?