Thanksgiving

My parents and 3 youngest sisters drove the long 15-hour drive from Iowa to come visit us for their Thanksgiving break. It was so much fun. Josh loves them so much of course and had the time of his life playing with them and getting all that love and attention. I loved spending time with everyone and it felt so great to have a house full of people I love. Brandon was able to take most of the week off work as well and that was such a treat to have him home. Basically I was in heaven this past week.


Grandma and Grandpa brought Josh lots of new toys, books, and clothes. They took over "Joshy duty" and took him for walks, gave him his baths, fed him food, read him books, etc. Josh especially loved chewing on Gram's reading glasses and climbing on Gramp's laptop. My younger sister Blair gave Josh her Curious George stuffed animal. It was so sweet of her. Josh loves Curious George so he was so excited and loves snuggling with it. My younger sisters held and played with Josh so much-- he was lovin life. It was nice for me to pretty much not worry at all about Josh all week.

We played Band Hero, watched a few movies, did a little shopping, and went out to eat at Guadalajara, our favorite restaurant in town.


Thanksgiving Day we spent the morning cooking, baking, and dissecting pomegranates. Brandon played football and came home without injury. We ate a delicious Thanksgiving meal around 1pm. Around 3:15 the power went out in our neighborhood. We were playing Catch Phrase so it didn't affect us too much. The power came back on around 4:45 right before it got dark. We were glad we'd eaten our Thanksgiving meal earlier-- we felt bad for people who were in the middle of baking or eating when the power went out.



The next day we got in the Christmas spirit: Brandon got himself a few Black Friday deals (the highlight of which was getting Nintendo Wii NBA Jam for $20 at Wal-mart), we decorated our little Christmas tree, made gingerbread houses, had a pizza party, made Chex Mix and puppy chow, and played Sequence while we watched Elf. We soaked up the last bits of time we had together.


Today stunk. Brandon left super early this morning to go out of town for work. Then my family left soon after to drive back to Iowa. Josh was attention-deprived so he wanted me to play with him and hold him constantly alllll day long. He kept looking for my family everywhere. He cried a lot. I cried a lot. We were both lonely and depressed in a too-quiet house. We tried to cheer ourselves up by looking at pictures from this past week. It made Josh laugh but it made me cry. Luckily we're flying to Iowa in 2 1/2 weeks for Christmas.
-Amy