Everything since Nov. 8th

I have a lot of pictures - most from a few specific days - from the past month. These are some (lots) of my favorites: Pictures on Google Albums

So it's been a long time. Just over three weeks. I've meant to blog. I've thought about blogging. But honestly, i just didn't have the heart to do it after the election. But life goes on, and things keep happening, and now it's December and Christmas is coming, and so.

(A quick aside. I am really quite heartbroken about the election. Not because i loved Hillary so much, but because i'm just so incredibly disappointed in people. I realize that people don't like Hillary, and that's fine. And in any other election in my lifetime, i'd say, "I'm bummed that my guy didn't win, but i'm sure the other guy will be able to do the job too." But Trump? He's just so offensive and unqualified. And so many of his followers are far too happy about being given leave to be openly racist and offensive now. And so far, since the election, nothing has lessened my fears. So. There. There's that for posterity.)

Anyhow. Things that we've been doing in November:

• Family Drawing night. It's always a favorite activity and really something we don't do often enough. Everyone has a special sketch book used specifically for family drawing night - the kids are all nearly finished with their second books (theirs are quite thin books...) - so there are drawings going back several years at the beginning of their books. They all started looking at what they'd drawn 4-5 years ago, and it really is fun to see how much better they are at drawing!
• Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them. The movie came out on the 18th, and so we got a big group together and had everyone over for a pre-movie party and then all went to see the movie together. Beth and Juanito and Keren and i made party favors - bookmarks and cookies and origami rats and suitcases (for where the beasts lived) and passports and little tiny beasts. Everyone brought food, and we had cupcakes to sort people into their American Magic school houses. Brooke even got to come, having just returned from New Zealand. Yay!
• We went to Meijer Gardens for the Tree Lighting. It was a members only event (fun!), and it was quite packed. The tree lighting itself was quite lame, but we got to see all of the trees and decorations at night, which was really pretty and totally worth it. My mom came with us, which was extra fun. It's been several years since we've gotten to all go, and i'm happy we got to see it again! Plus there were carolers and cookies, so it was extra awesome.
• Thanksgiving! We went to my parents' house for Thanksgiving this year, and we had lots and lots of people to celebrate with us. My aunt and uncle and cousins who we always do Thanksgiving with were there, along with my cousin Cindy and her family and my mom's cousin and her husband. We ended up with two long tables full of people. And i remembered again that i really like my whole extended family.
• The kids and i decorated the house for Christmas while Juanito was sleeping. He's not actually a fan of the decorating, and we all are, so we figured that there was no reason to wait for Juanito for us to get started. Katrina and Zane woke up early and brought up all of the decorations from the basement. (If i'd known this ahead of time, i'd have been extremely worried about all of the very fragile things they were maybe going to drop and break, but they didn't break anything at all! Woohoo!) We set up the fake tree (but didn't decorate it). We hung up the stockings and the advent calendars and the mistletoe and all of the other decorations that we put on walls. We found places for the snow globes and snowmen and nativity scenes and all of the other stuff that goes on random shelves. And the kids were actually helpful! Like...actually helpful! This is a wonderful new phase!
• We went to get a real Christmas tree. We met my parents at the same tree farm we've been going to for years. We fully planned to get a "pretty tree," but then we just happened along a really cute wonky-ish tree. The past several years we've looked for wonky trees and haven't found any that were remotely cute, so when we saw this one, we were like, "Huh. We kind of can't pass this up, can we?" Katrina was a little bit devastated - we'd just been looking at pictures that very morning of the year that she thought we were joking about getting a silly tree and then was completely crushed when she realized that we actually were getting a silly tree instead of a pretty one - but she was placated by my mom's kind offer to let her borrow a little fake tree for her own bedroom. Juanito got the tree all set up and the kids put their ornaments in the most ridiculously random pattern ever, and once it was decorated it's really quite adorable.
• We went to Meijer Gardens again. This time we went with my sister Chellie and her kids. Going with different people always makes it a whole different experience. It was fun to see the trees when it wasn't so completely mobbed. Katrina and Zane had fun getting to show their cousins around. Juanito and Houston came later to meet us so Chellie could take family pictures for our Christmas cards. Yay!
• Advent started, so we got to light our first candle on Sunday. My goal this year is to actually get all the way to the last candle. Every year we do the first 2-3, and then by the end we're all busy and we just forget. 
• I got to babysit my friends' kids today. They're between 4-8, and they're all adorable, and i was reminded of just how short kids' attention spans are at this age. And also how much little kids like to touch All! The! Things! They were all very disappointed in me for not having more toys around for them to play with, but my kids weren't home, and i didn't want to offer their toys without their permission. I did teach them "Guess Who," and that continues to be a game that every single kid ever loves to play. We played lots of other games too, but Guess Who was the hands-down favorite. And they spent half of their time here holding the guinea pig and only stopped when i insisted that the poor little thing needed some quiet alone time. (Me: "Y'know how, when you're really tired and you just want to be quiet and alone for a little while?" All of them: "I never want to be quiet! Or alone!")

Warmth and sunshine are good things

Today was an amazingly beautiful, warm day, especially considering that it's November. Juanito, Zane, and i took a walk to enjoy the sunshine and warmth. We walked down toward the construction that's been going on since FOREVER, and it seems like it might actually be getting close to being finished. Yay!!!

There were some construction guys who were putting the finishing touches on the road - the painted "Only" and arrow and bike lane pictures on the road. We, of course, stopped and watched them for several minutes. It was quite fascinating. Did you know, for example, that they spray paint it and then toss little glass beads into the paint? They do! And then they blow it all off with a leaf blower. Because otherwise the cars that come along will slip on the loose beads and mess up the paint.

As we were walking along, Zane noticed a leaf that had blown into the path of the line being painted on the road. The road now has one leaf-shaped hole in the paint, and Zane is the proud owner of one white-painted, glass-beaded leaf.

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My mom had knee-replacement surgery today. According to my dad, it went really well. She had quite a lot of motion before, so that should help with the recovery, which...seems reasonable? I went to visit her in the hospital a couple of hours after she got out of surgery, and she was still quite (adorably) groggy, slurring words and falling asleep mid-sentence, sleeping for 30 seconds and then waking up and then falling asleep again. She'll maybe be in the hospital for an additional night, because they did the surgery late enough in the day that she was pretty much out of it for the rest of today, but she seems to be doing really well.

Here's hoping that the recovery is swift and as painless as possible!

Harry Potter's birthday!

Today was Harry Potter's birthday, and we're just geeks enough that it can't go by completely unobserved.

Today was also the day that Zane had his friend to sleep over, so that he'll wake up and have Justin here on his birthday and be able to play together (rather than waking up and having church).

And so Beth and Keren came over, and we had tacos and hung out a bit, and then we decorated cupcakes. Zane and Justin decorated the cupcakes because it's Zane's birthday. The rest of us decorated them for Harry Potter's birthday. And that way, everyone was happy. 

Florida - Day 3! Harry Potter World!!!!

We spent the entire day at Universal, and almost the entire time in one of the two worlds of Harry Potter, and it was amazing. AMAZING.

We started out in the newer of the two parks - Diagon Alley - and i was almost immediately overwhelmed with how incredible everything was. They did SUCH a good job of making everything PERFECT. It's a testament to how good of a job they did that someone who knows the books really, really well can walk around all day and not come across anything that i thought, "Hm. Well, that's not right." There were all of the things from the movies, but then there were details that people wouldn't even know if they'd only seen the movies. It was so happy-making. And everyone who worked there seemed to be really happy.

We rode the Escape from Gringotts ride, and it was fantastic. It was the first thing we did, and i'm guessing that every other ride will pale in comparison. We walked through all of the shops and looked at every detail and i took 745 pictures in the course of the day, many of them little details. Keren got a butterbeer, which she let us try. Beth got an ice cream cone from Florean Fortescue's Ice Cream Parlor (where Harry used to sit every day to do his homework, while Florean would bring him free ice cream every hour before third year). We ate at the Three Broomsticks. (Beth and i shared fish and chips, and they were delicious!) We rode the Hogwarts Express - twice. Keren bought an interactive wand, so she walked around finding the little places to do magic and making things move and sing and do random things.

My pants completely ripped right in the butt about an hour after we got there (apparently that's another good reason not to wear old clothes?), so i spent the entire day trying to hide my butt with my purse. Keren and Beth insist that i did an admirable job and nobody could tell...except when we couldn't take our bags onto a ride with us, and then i just ... flashed my underwear at everyone, i guess. It was...not ideal. On the bright side, it was my butt, so at least it didn't show up in pictures!

Boat wars

A couple of weeks ago, Houston got this really geeky idea to get his friends together to make boats and have a contest to see whose could hold the most weight without tipping over. He emailed his 3 best friends furiously with all the rules and the plans and the times and whatnot, and today the two more reliable friends showed up. 

They used marbles as weights, and Houston's did awesome until the little circle ran out of room. The friend who just used a pie pan with a bit of tin foil totally won. They they all got a chance to do one modification, and Houston added a bowl so it had more space, and his sank spectacularly nearly immediately. The pie pan still won. (On a side note, i'm going to be finding marbles everywhere for days.)

It was Houston's first effort at organizing something, and he did SUCH a great job. Everyone was excited - even Zane and Katrina and Katrina's friend who happened to have spent the night. The bathroom was packed full of people wanting to see whose boat could hold the most. And when that was finished, there was Apples to Apples to play, and lots and lots of laughter. Yay!

In other news: Emma had her first vet appointment today, and the vet totally agrees that she is right around a year old, not the 2 years that the Humane Society told us she was. We keep saying, "She's totally just barely out of puppyhood," and the vet agrees. Vindicated!