It’s been a hot minute, as is my life these days it seems, and we’ve celebrated a variety of things, and we’ve mourned the loss of another. Life is so interesting with its ups and downs, oftentimes competing for one’s attention. We’ve celebrated everything we have to be thankful for with the annual Thanksgiving dinner and having a nice long weekend to spend as a family without work or school. We celebrated Brooke’s actual birthday day and have her party approaching this weekend.
And I’ve lost my second grandfather, my Grandad Gene, on December 7th, as everyone is embarking on the joyous Christmas season and with a parent approaching a milestone lifetime achievement of retirement. It’s very difficult balancing ones emotions, being present and feeling both of them, and understanding how and what to feel. Bryan said he wouldn’t be surprised if I have some sort of PTSD from this time of year in years ahead and I wouldn’t either. Fortunately, this is a time that we typically come together so we will shortly be together to embrace and enjoy the company that we do still have. It will certainly be bittersweet but it is also wonderful knowing that we will be in it together.
Our Thanksgiving was pretty quiet this year. Reese didn’t have school the whole week through as they are now holding parent teacher conferences during this time. She spent the day at home on Monday and I took her and Lottie to the Children’s Museum at the Seattle Center where her and Lottie had a really great time and played until nearly closing. We bussed back home and Sarah grabbed Lottie from the bus.
She spent a day at Kids Club with Lottie and the last day at Lottie’s house to play so she got a lot of Lottie time this week. We celebrated the beginning of a long weekend at the playground and then getting a delicious Szechuan dinner at Biang Biang for some spicy beef noodles, potstickers, cucumber salad and chicken karaage. The girls did good and even seemed to enjoy the food…and watching the giant fish tank behind us.
For Thanksgiving, we were hosting Sarah and Lottie (more Lottie!) but first got a little energy out at Peppi’s Playground for an outdoor group fitness class which was a lot of fun for about 10 moms and 15 kids joining us. After an hour of sweating we headed home, with two more girls in tow, had a little playdate while I worked on some of the dinner. The two girls left and then Lottie came over. I’d say our very traditional and very simple dinner of turkey, mashed potatoes and gravy, stuffing, green beans and salad came out as good as I would have hoped. Sarah and Lottie brought over an apple crisp which was also delicious and we shared two very good bottles of wine. All in all a good day.
We spent the next and night heading over to our friend’s Lisa and Chris’ new cabin in the Hood Canal, about a 90 minute drive. Reese and Georgie and Sam and Brooke were all very cute and played well, although Reese wasn’t feeling her best. We enjoyed the hot tub a couple of times, their wood stove, their fire pit and of course leftovers! Their cabin is peaceful and serene and reminds me a lot of the cottage. We had a good night’s sleep and woke up the next morning to enjoy much of the same, plus watch the surprising victory of Michigan over Ohio State. We packed up to head back to Seattle around 1:30 and wanted to get home to watch the Texas vs A&M game. Great outcome and delicious nachos for that one.
And we concluded our long weekend with a very ugly Seahawks win and then a nice sunny walk to Madison Park to play at the playground with Brooke’s buddy Madison before they left for Hawaii. It was chilly and the sun was setting on our way home so we warmed up for a bit with some hot cocoa at Starbucks first. And Bryan and I got a babysitter to come so that we can have some adult time out for dinner to try a new Peruvian restaurant in Bellevue (thanks to a mystery shop). Definitely eastside vibes, décor and service, which always makes us feel a bit out of place, but we enjoyed the food and drinks and each other’s company of course. It was a nice way to end the weekend.
Last week was mostly about Brooke. I made 25 cake pops for her to take to school with her on Wednesday and wrapped her presents. Reese unfortunately started feeling sick (probably lingering still from the weekend) the night before and ended up spending her first day home from school on Wednesday. Bryan worked from home too so I took just Brooke to her gymnastics class where she finally had a buddy in her class. She had a great time and then we headed back home to pick up the other two to go get dinner at Kamp down the street, and mostly to enjoy their Christmas decorations and fake snow machine. We enjoyed our dinner but Brooke was ready to get home to blow out candles and open her presents. Which we did next. I had gotten three luxe donuts for each year of Brooke’s life and these were amazing and Brooke enjoyed it all.
This past weekend was the difficult one. I learned my grandad wasn’t doing well right after Brooke’s birthday and was waiting to hear what was going to happen. Fortunately my dad got down there in time to be with my grandad and it wasn’t long before we knew definitively that he was gone. He passed away early morning on Saturday.
I did my best to swallow my emotions for the afternoon as I was attending the Nutcracker with Reese and five of her friends but there was definitely a lot of still raw emotion that I felt especially during the quieter moments of the ballet. In all honesty it was a good and beautiful way to sit with my feelings but also just hard when surrounded by others. I spent Sunday morning with the girls and then got one more soccer game in with my team before the year is over and I needed this!
We have just this one last week of work and school and a few days next week before we go. Of course there are so many December events in the days remaining, plus the remaining presents to buy, wrap, packing, etc but I think I’ve spent four hours already today just trying to sort out flights for our trip to Texas and I still don’t have any. Ay my head is spinning, I can only imagine how much my parents heads are too. We are almost there.
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Chelsea
