Four Day Weekends

Don't you think they should all be four day weekends?

I am back at work and not happy about it.

Thursday was Thanksgiving of course. We got up early and started cleaning and cooking in preparation for both sets of parents coming over for dinner. The kids helped with the cleaning a lot, and I helped with the cooking a little, but the majority of the credit goes to my beautiful wife Jen. She whipped our house into shape and got everything ready. Dinner was great, the company was great, the day was great. Thanks to everyone who came, and thanks again to my love for being so wonderful.

Friday we hung out with the kids in the morning and generally had a much needed flake of a day. After we dropped the kids off at their father's we went Christmas shopping and hit the mother lode. We're not finished yet, but we're close.

Saturday the love of my life, Jennifer the beautiful, had to work most of the day but we managed to watch a couple of flicks together while hanging out at the house. National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation is just as funny today as it was when we first saw it 200 years ago. All I can say is, "SQUIRREL!" We also watched Casino Royale on Blu-ray. James Bond has never been more lifelike. The high definition images are freakin' outstanding.

Sunday was Thanksgiving Part Deux, which is a holiday we alone celebrate. My sister spends Thanksgiving with her husband's family and my brother spends it with his wife's family, so we have our own private little celebration a few days later where we get to all spend it together. This weekend the kids were with their father so we weren't going to be able to take them with us. I was a pretty sad about that. I wanted them to join us so we could have all of the kids involved in the sort-of-holiday. As luck had it though, the kid's dad had a scheduling conflict and asked if we could watch them for a couple of hours. Magically those hours matched up exactly with the turkey dinner at my sister's. It was perfect, like an early Christmas present. We all got some major baby time. I hope the kids had as much fun as I did.

Because of the way the kid schedule works out, this coming weekend is the only good opportunity we have to put up our Christmas decorations. It's a little earlier than I usually like to do it, but then again I usually like to wait until nearly the last minute. I'm one of those later-is-better-than-sooner Christmas decorators. However, this weekend is the weekend to do it for us.

It is also a busy weekend. We are baby sitting my niece on Saturday, and on Sunday we are going on the insensitively named Dead Relatives Tour, which is when we visit my grandparent's graves with a pretty substantial group of relatives.

That means we will have to start decorating during the week. We have the kids from Wednesday through Sunday but Thursday night we have other plans. So... we will buy a tree on Wednesday, decorate on Friday, and then spend Saturday and Sunday with family. Sounds like a plan. All of the decorating materials (except the tree) have been moved from the basement to the kitchen and are just itching to be put up. The tree will once again go in the dining room, although we tried to figure out a way to get it into the living room. There just isn't enough room. It was wonderful in the dining room last year, it will be again this year.

We had a wonderful busy week last week and we will have another wonderful busy week again this week. I can't wait!

There is one other important bit of journal worthy news today. Six month ago today I married the woman of my dreams. I married Ms Right. I married Jen. Today is our 0.5 year anniversary, or our sixth monthiversary. What ever you call it, it's a small milestone in the journey that is my marriage to Jen. The sweetest, kindest, smartest, charmingest, funniest, most beautiful, sexiest (oh yeah!), lovingest woman I have ever known.

I love you honey bunny. Here's to about 100 more half years together.