Wednesday, December 18, 2013

It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas


The day after Thanksgiving we had family pictures taken.  We used one with Wayne and I for our cards, but above is one of just the grand kids.  I've spent the past two weeks decorating for Christmas.  It's nice being retired and having time to do it the way I want.  I don't know how I ever had time to work.  After decorating I had the Fancy Aunt Lunch this past Sunday.  My sisters, sister in laws, daughter and nieces celebrate birthdays, usually combining two or three at a time.  This time it was for my s.i.l. Didi, and two of my sisters who have birthdays this week.

I've ordered some Christmas presents on-line, half which have not come yet.  The seven older grand kids want gift cards.  I hate not buying presents for them, so I got the gift cards and a gift for each to open.  I had fun buying toys for the two babies.  Yesterday I went to the post office to mail our cards, to Shop n Save to buy gift cards, to Old Navy to return a sweater, to Pet Smart, Hobby Lobby and Abercrombie & Fitch to buy gift cards.  Then I went by Meramec to register Wayne for a class this spring and visit my old office.  I was tired by the time I got home, but glad I got so much done. 

Here are some pictures of our house and the luncheon:

Sunday, December 1, 2013

Thanksgiving

We had a nice Thanksgiving with all of our family except Patrick.  There were 17 of us, a manageable number.  It was really nice with the new kitchen.  I just put all of the dishes on the island and people just filled their plates in there.  After dinner we all went to my sister Libby's for dessert.  I forgot to take any pictures, but below are some from our house.


Then Friday was Wayne's birthday, and Amy had us all over there for Imo's pizza. 


Early Saturday morning we had a photographer come to the house and take pictures of all of the grand kids on our front porch.  I wanted to get a good picture for our Christmas card, and Wayne and I were in a few.  The kids behaved better than I expected.  I'm anxious to get the CD of the pictures.  

Kate, her two, Abbey and I went to visit my mother-in-law at Friendship Village in the afternoon.  It is pretty depressing, but we don't know how much longer she will be around, so we visit when we can.  John and Chellie had taken the two babies to see her Friday afternoon, and though she couldn't remember who they were, she kept telling us some relative brought the two cutest babies to see her.  She doesn't remember much and repeats herself every five minutes, but she is thrilled to see her great grand children.  We all met at a restaurant in Kirkwood for dinner, and John and Chellie left this morning.  Kate and Corinne and Jack will leave tomorrow afternoon.  They will not be back for Christmas, but John and Chellie will.

Saturday, November 23, 2013

A Few Pictures


When I wrote the post a couple of days ago I was unable to add pictures.  I finally figured out I needed to go back and delete some old ones.  Google will only let you upload so many pictures.  So, here are a couple of pictures from Halloween and a lot from my visit to Cincinnati.

We've watched 28 episodes of "Homeland" in the past week.  That's about 28 hours.  We're really enjoying it, but taking a break this afternoon and evening to watch college football.

Wednesday, November 20, 2013

Free at Last

I'm finally really retired.  Last Tuesday was my last day.  I don't miss it at all.  

The past month has been busy.  I went to Boston for a long weekend to visit Kate and the kids, and we went to Connecticut for Corinne's Feis.  I had never seen her dance in a Feis, so it was interesting.  There were some real stage mothers there.  One little girl fell and didn't want to dance anymore, but her mother made her, literally pushing her up on the stage while she was sobbing.  We stopped for lunch on the way home in Sandyhook, which was kind of eerie.  Corinne seems to enjoy Irish Dancing, though Kate doesn't know if it's worth the time and money.   It was good seeing the kids for a few days; they'll be here for Thanksgiving but everyone is running around trying to see everyone else.


Halloween was kind of a bummer.  It rained pretty hard until about seven.  Our in-town grand kids came over about seven fifteen and trick or treated for about half an hour.  I was disappointed in the weather because I finally have a porch the trick or treaters can stand on and it was raining.



Our house is pretty well finished.  We had part of the porch screened in.  Wayne wasn't crazy about having that done, but he loves it.  He sits out there for hours.  Then last week we had a new roof put on the old part of our house to match the new part.  All we really need to do now is have a tile back splash put n the kitchen.  We'll probably wait until after Thanksgiving for that.  

When I got back from Boston, I got a new car, a Jeep Compass.  It's dark red and looks like a miniature Grand Cherokee.  I wanted a small SUV but most of the ones rated highly were foreign cars, and Wayne does not want me to drive a foreign car.  I took the new car on a road trip and drove to Cincinnati to see John and Chellie and help with the babies while Chellie went to a conference.  It was fun spending a few days with them.  Stephanie is a real character, and Julia is just darling.  They also will be here next week for Thanksgiving; they have not been here since Easter so it will be fun to have them here.  



After I got back last week I worked just Tuesday and have been really lazy the past week.  I've been trying to get closets cleaned out upstairs and get rid of clothes we don't need.  And cleaning up there.  Wayne and I have been watching a series on Showtime, Homeland.  We started with the first season, using "on demand," and have watched all of season one and most of season two in less than a week.  That's about 20 hours of TV.  It's a great series; Kate has been telling me to watch it for two years, and now I see why.