With an entire week off of school and our plans to visit family canceled... due to Danny making the JV basketball team as a freshman, Kate not wanting to miss her best friend's birthday party, Hubby being needed at work for two overnight shifts, our extended family not actually eating Thanksgiving dinner together while we would be there and Natalie and I getting car sick... we just had to tell Michelle we weren't going after all. So, we found a couple things to do. Natalie and I used my library card to go to our local museum for free and we enjoyed remembering the permanent exhibits and explored the traveling one. It was art related to agriculture and at times it gave me a Meow Wolf vibe but we both enjoyed using light to make artwork the most. It gave us something nice to do while Danny was at basketball practice and the teenage girls were working on their beauty rest.
This week was also a time to cross some items off the to do list. Michelle and I really wanted to visit her favorite local book store before it went out of business. Turns out the owner moved out of state and it will only be open for a few more weeks. After making a couple purchases there and running into one of her former Waldorf School classmates, we decided it was time for lunch at her favorite pizza place as well.
Thanksgiving Day we had my parents over for a wonderful feast. I wish I had a video of the kitchen when we were happily working together. Hubby did a wonderful job with the turkey per usual and also went to Great Harvest for dessert bread and rolls, Kate made the stuffing from scratch all by herself. Danny took care of the cranberry sauce and we discovered he is unaffected by cutting onions. I told him it was a super power but I don't think he believed me. Natalie was all around best assistant in every way along with being in charge of the yams and green bean casserole. She and I also made the GF DF spice cake the day before. I was the all around planner/overseer/ and failed mashed potato maker. We decided to make the potatoes in the Instant Pot but if didn't work for some reason. (I am tempted to buy a new one because honestly it's only working half of the time now and I don't' know why.) My dad was the true hero of dessert because he brought one can of whipped cream for every pie he brought. The children liked that much better and repaid him by making him laugh pretty hard by putting whipped cream on their hands to slap into their mouth and playing Pie Face.
I am so grateful the eight of us could be together, make happy memories in our kitchen, and enjoy a yummy meal together. It was great to not have much on our calendars and I'm glad we stayed home even though I know we would have had a great time visiting Hubby's family as well. On Black Friday we took down all the Thanksgiving decorations and put up the Christmas ones except our tree. It felt good to be get that up and ready before heading back to school on Monday.
On our way to a high school about an hour northeast of us, our back left tire went kaput. Somehow, even though my max speed on the interstate in the snow had only been 50mph, we ended up with a hole in the side of the brand new tires that had been installed three weeks before. Luckily we were able to get Danny an Uber to the high school (he missed most of the first scrimmage but got to play in the second one) and I got to wait an hour and a half for a tow truck after a local tire store saw that the air they were trying to add was coming out as fast as it was going in. I had the tow truck take me to the nearest Costco and luckily I only had to pay $2 to dispose of the old tire. Unluckily, the closest replacement tire was in Texas. But one of the Vibes baseball moms, A.C., came to our rescue after the basketball games were over. Not only did she feed my son lunch but she also drove out of her way to come get me so I wouldn’t have to wait for Hubby to come get me. I definitely owe her! A’s kindness plus comments like this from another mom really brightened my day, “Everyone was so excited when he walked in safely! We JUST missed ya by about 10 mins. Per usual he played hard, great games!” So even though I didn’t get to see Danny play, I was still so grateful for these team moms that I used to watch baseball with and now I get to watch basketball with (hopefully).
So just a couple weeks after Kate’s new found freedom with having a driver’s license, the car she learned how to drive on had to sit in a parking lot for days waiting for a new tire. BUT if we were going to get a hole in that tire while driving on the interstate while it was snowing, I am sure glad it wasn’t my teenage driver behind the wheel. Hubby took her out in the truck that same day to teach her how to drive it in the snow so at least she could still drive before and after school if I didn’t need it to take her younger siblings places. I am still getting used to the truck myself and I have to laugh every time I am in a different car because with three different makes it feels like everything is in a different location every time I sit down. Luckily on my one day off work this week (Thursday), the new tire came in and Hubby was able to come home from work and drive me up to get my car. Since they didn’t want my keys to work on it unless I was there, I came armed with Catching Fire on my iPad and my headphones. Hubby felt bad leaving me there but I didn’t even get through the entire movie before they were finished. I noticed the window was rolled down when they gave it to me and soon realized it was because the car was so dirty you couldn’t see out the side windows, which you definitely need to do before changing lanes or turning. So I asked Siri to take me to the nearest Breeze Thru car wash and was glad I had brought a winter hat and gloves along with my jacket because I had to roll down those windows every time I moved and it was freezing out. It all ended up ok and the car wash happened to be close to Bath and Body Works (which we don’t have in our town) so I went in there and bought neighbor gifts before heading home. Trouble was my back rear tire light was going off still, along with the washer fluid light, and they had told me to get the lug nuts checked after 25 miles so I stopped at my local Costco because with the trip south and the car wash and gift detour, I was at 30 miles when I got there. Costco checked the nuts and the pressure and reset the sensor for me. I also put an entire gallon is windshield washer fluid in, grabbed a few things inside (like pretty snow globe stamps for Christmas cards) and got home just in time to enjoy the spaghetti Hubby made for dinner. So many hours to take care of that tire but at least it is done and everyone is safe.
Our last bit of Thanksgiving break fun was a trip to the Denver Museum of Nature and Science, again getting in for free thanks to my library card. We made sure to see the two traveling exhibits first, one on color and one on the Ice Age. We also figured out why I get so cold so easily. Apparently my body doesn't have enough brown fat basically because I don't spend enough time in the cold -- or I have a defect. lol. We also did the gnome scavenger hunt -- it's a must! This was Hubby's first time being able to join in and I'm so glad he did. It was also our first time grabbing a certificate. Michelle got it for us and was so cute to have them put Natalie's name on it.
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