Holly's Notes and Condition

Relaxing Thanksgiving Weekend Spent At Home

We had a really nice and relaxing Thanksgiving weekend, pretty much spent at or close to home this year. We had a nice evening at Brent and Adriana's on Thanksgiving for dinner, and as they only live 3 miles from us, it was quick and easy to get over there and get home later that night. Fabulous food and good company. Jeremy gave a lovely Thanksgiving blessing, via cell phone. Jeremy and Nabaht joined us shortly after dinner, long enough to say hi and to hold and kiss the baby. We received a text message 'Happy Thanksgiving, Love You' from Justin, as he was celebrating Thanksgiving with Melissa's family.
Grandbaby Millie was happy and smiling, even full on giggling at one point while her Grandpa Rigo was holding her. She took a little power nap and then stayed awake for most of the evening. We managed to fit (14) people into Brent and Adriana's apartment - it was a cozy, full house. After Adriana's cousins left, her brother Danny and his daughter, Isabella joined the party. Brent had their artificial pre-lit Christmas tree put up and decorated before we arrived - it was very pretty and festive.

I watched the Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade this year. I liked the change in route, finishing on 34th street in front of Macy's and the aerial views.It looked like the weather was kind by NYC standards: cold, but clear and not too crazy windy for the giant balloons that they have in the parade. The jump roping squad was cute. 'Sesame Street' celebrating 40 years and 'Snoopy' being 60 years old, really reminded me of the passage of time.

I enjoyed cooking this weekend: I made homemade split pea soup on Sunday and we had cedar plank grilled orange glazed salmon with cauliflower for dinner on Saturday.
I didn't cook a turkey this year, but we enjoyed the wonderful turkey dinner that Adriana had prepared and tasty homemade sides of potatoes and cauliflower - her hours of watching the Food Network while on maternity leave really paid off - she is an excellent cook and she really enjoys it. We also enjoyed a very tasty ham that her Aunt Elsa had prepared,(yes, Uncle Eddie claimed credit for prepping and baking the ham, as he sliced it up - funny, ha-ha) and there was tasty homemade stuffing that her mom Maria made, for that one meal and we took no leftovers.

We didn't shop at all on the day after Thanksgiving, 'Black Friday'. The weather was wonderful for being outside, for most of the day, so that's what we did - we spent the day outside: I worked in my garden and prepped meals, so that Dave could work on putting phase one of our Christmas decorations up: we have the 18 foot high inflatable Santa waving from our backyard towards the west - he's visible all the way to the nearby 241 Toll Road. Jeremy stopped by and helped Dave a bit with the engineering of a stabilizing platform and the tethering, so that Santa wouldn't blow away down the hill, when the winds pick up. Then as I was still working in the yard - pruning my grapevines, clearing fallen leaves, planting more pole beans, Dave continued on the decorations: he hung up the multi-colored lights laced within artificial green pine garland along the eves of the garage. He really knows what he's doing and it goes up very quickly.

Our friends, Marc and Alice were also putting up their lights and decorations.
They had a bit of an issue with '1/2' a strand of icicle lights going out, so Dave went over and offered his help. They finished just as the last light of sunset was fading at about 5:00 pm. (Sunset was at 4:45 pm and there was a pretty good storm front rolling in from the west/ southwest, so the sunlight faded quickly and the wind picked up and it got chilly outside.) Its starting to look festive on our street.


We bought and hung up our fresh pine decorated Christmas wreath, handmade by 'Carol' of Phil's Big Trees. Phil's extended family has returned with a smaller 'big white tent' of Christmas trees for sale this year. They are located in the empty lot at the end of the shopping center down the hill from our house again this year. They come down from Oregon each year from Nov 20th - Dec 24th to sell their Oregon grown trees. We have been buying fresh wreaths and Christmas pine trees, and homemade jams and jellies from them for the last several years. It is a pleasure to do business with them.

We watched a very intense and well done episode of the television show, 'Lie To Me' starring Tim Roth, via the computer online viewing service, Hulu, which we just started using per our sons' recommendations, last week - Dave and I really like using Hulu - we like being able to watch shows on our schedule, not the networks' and the little mini ads aren't too disruptive to watch. Anyway, the episode was called 'Secret Santa' and I think it was probably the best one they have done so far.

I called my Mom on Thanksgiving evening, she sounds better than when I spoke to her last time, which was on Monday, Nov 23rd. She has been trying to stay ahead of a cold that she has been fighting pretty much since she returned from Seattle after visiting my sister Helene's family, Nov 10th - Nov 14th.
I'm glad to hear that she's not overdoing it and paying attention to getting rest and staying hydrated, as we certainly don't want it getting ahead of her.
Mama told me that my sister Heidi is also fighting a cold now, too - similar symptoms - she figures Heidi is running about a day behind Mama's symptoms. I hope they both feel much better, very soon.

I sent email, text and Facebook messages to family and friends, Dave did the same.
He also took the opportunity and picked up the phone and called his cousin Pam, who lives with her family in Montana. He said they had a good chat. They talked on the phone for almost 30 minutes - just good to hear each other's voices, it had been awhile since they had talked.

It was a relaxing and enjoyable Thanksgiving weekend, even including the overnight rain that we got Friday night, which cleared out quickly to gorgeous panoramic views during the days and clear starry nights, with the almost full moon rising and setting early now.

posted by Holly @ 8:07 AM