My daughter and my new son-in-law arrived last weekend to spend Thanksgiving with family. Fortunately his parents live in my city too....so coming home for the holidays is easy since we only live about 5 miles apart.
I wasn't sure how we were going to split the kids.....would they sleep here ...there....how would we coordinate time....but it slipped into an easy arrangement....I set up the extra guest bedroom in our house and people could come and go. My son-in-law has mostly stayed with his folks and my daughter spends most of her time with us....and in the next coming days we will join families for Thanksgiving dinner plus some visiting on Friday before they leave for home on Saturday.
To get the week started....my daughter and I scouted out the the new upscale Mall near my house to window shop and browse. We didn't have a shopping list or any objectives but we seemed to be on a mission.
Viola....we knew what it was when we saw it!
Giant comfy coffee mugs........sturdy ....holding about 2 cups each and pretty enough to start each day at our house with a good kick of caffeine.
Knowing the week would hold a lot of eating and some shopping......we loaded up the car with the family the first day and headed out to the river to walk around the new pedestrian bridge....a niffy structure created from an old railroad bridge.
I have to compliment the city fathers....we have a wide river that runs along side our city and they've been making some quality improvements over the last few years....creating bridges and bike paths along the banks.
After this tourist stint, it's been all business....heading to the jewelry store to get a pearl necklace fixed ( she tried on a 36,000 ring....and I tried on a 22,000 necklace but alas we left them at the store!)......and a bit of bargain hunting. Yesterday....she scored 80.00 pants for 19.00 and I got a 200.00 winter jacket for 40.00....yeah for us!
Yesterday we spent the day getting ready for Thanksgiving.....a warm and comfy and pleasant tradition.....putting two tables together in the dining room....trying to figure out which table linens to use.....decorating the table.....pulling out Emily Post's Etiquette book to settle a question about the wine glasses....and doing the girlie prep stuff that is soothing to a woman's soul.
I probably wouldn't have enjoyed this setting the room if I was also cooking...but my husband is the cook in the family....and really gets to do all the hard sweaty work. In fact, the house looked like it had a split personality last night....here's my daughter and I in pretty dining room smoothing linens...setting out the silverware...and walk into the kitchen and there's my hub....sweating...fan on....stove top filled with pots and pans....the counters covered with recipes and groceries and knives and bowls.....but as much as I like decorating....he likes to cook....so we each had our own work zones.
And speaking of work......I am on kitchen clean-up duty this morning ......and there's where I better be heading off to...........
