Missing a Few

Well, a month of daily, consecutive blog posts has eluded me once again. There you go.
Once I missed the first post, suddenly it wasn't so urgent to write every day. Of course, last week we were at my parents' house two states away, and a daily post meant staying up later than was helpful each night (I took along a novel that never even made it out of my bag!).
Our annual Thanksgiving vacation was good: spending time with family and friends and hitting a few favorite haunts always feels just right. I could have tacked a few extra days onto our vacation with great gladness, but it also feels really good to be home. What is it about sleeping in your own bed - even if no one in the house sleeps very well, as last night - that feels so good?
We arrived home late-evening yesterday, and hit the ground running. G got the car unloaded (we came home with WAY more stuff than we headed west with, after more shopping than we should have done...) and I got the first load of laundry into the washing machine. This morning we all overslept after our night of horrible sleep, and I got to the office about 10am, was home for 45minutes of lunch, and didn't get home again until close to 8pm. G got to church for the first Advent midweek soup supper (he even made soup this afternoon!) and then led Evening Prayer and got home just as I was putting the Munchkin to bed.
 Of course we didn't manage to get the house very clean or tidy before we hit the road 10 days ago, so there's still plenty of work left to do around here. My hope is to get all the autumn decorations put away and the first Advent decorations up before the end of the week. We'll see... If the tidying and cleaning get done, and I can get the advent wreath out and the mantel "done" I'll feel pretty good...

What's the state of Advent/Christmas decorating at your house? How ambitious are you this year?

Oh, and before I forget: as promised, Santa Picture #39

My sister's family and my family. The tradition lives!
Too bad the little ones weren't happy about it!

28 days is at least one day too many, evidently

So, I missed posting yesterday. And it was only the 4th of the month. Whatcha gonna do... One of the reasons I didn't manage to write anything yesterday was that after we got home from our mutual ministry committee meeting (one of the few committee meetings I really look forward to and enjoy) we spent some quality screen time looking at cruises online. My father has decided he wants to take Grant, me, my sister, her husband and son, and my mom, of course, on an Alaskan cruise this summer. It's something we can all do together, while hopefully still offering enough variety to meet everyone's needs and wants. Needless to say, just finding a time frame that works for everyone is going to be a challenge. I've never been on a cruise, and don't really think of myself as the cruising type. I tend to like to be in charge of where I go and what I do, and WHEN, all of which is compromised once you get on the ship. At the same time, I don't want to look a gift cruise in the mouth, either. A June cruise north to glacier-land should make for a pretty fun and beautiful adventure. I'll just have to keep reminding myself that I can go back someday if I want to. So, we have the weekend to choose our cruiseline and itinerary, keeping in mind that cruising with an almost three year old and a woman in a wheel chair means making different choices than we might if it was just the two of us. Maybe it will help me slow down a little. Couldn't hurt.