Today I slept in and blogged while Lily put major effort into cleaning the house in preparation for us to leave and my dad and Suzanne to babysit the kids here. Then I helped her while we listened to church together. Brittany Mangleson gave a great sermon lamenting the recent shooting, and inspiring me to focus on peace and what matters most this season.
Then Lily worked out while I did more odds and ends, and then we drove to my mom’s house for our Thanksgiving dinner with her. She had a wonderful spread of steelhead trout, prime rib, salad, green beans, yams, rolls and mashed potatoes with gravy. For desert she had rhubarb and peach pie with ice cream. David and Olivia were leaving as we arrived (we were running late), but it was fun to see them. It was so fun to chat with my mom, Jay, and Jere and the food was so good. We chatted about a book Jere has been reading about the era of the Spanish Armada and we also talked about how gravity does not exist (but the curvature of spacetime does), which is one of my favorite topics. We got on the topic of our old dogs Lucy and Ethel, and Jay told the story that when Ethel was put down, he was waiting with Lucy in the car, and she started to bark. When my mom arrived at the car 10-15 minutes later, Jay asked how long ago they put Ethel down and it seemed to be the exact time Lucy started barking. Those dogs were very special to me, and they also had a very special bond with each other. We also talked about the house two doors down that my mom is under contract for, their new paint in the front room that looks really nice, as well as other life updates.
One life update is that my mom just got braces! It was so fun to get a picture of her next to Lydia!
Then the house started smelling like poop. To our great dismay, we learned that Basil had found poop to roll in and it was all over his body. His rolled in poop before, but this eclipses all of his other poop rolling situations. It was all over him. We didn’t know what to do. Finally, we threw him in a shower, and I just stripped down and got in the shower with him and scrubbed him and scrubbed him and scrubbed him with 3 or 4 shampoos. Even then, I was worried if I got it all, but he smelled good at the end of it all, so it worked out.
After that, we went to visit my grandma. She is not very happy where she is staying as says they are not taking good care of her. The family is looking to move her into a new facility. But she is still doing much better than she was when she first moved in and had her UTI. It was very fun to visit with her while she at the dinner my mom brought over for her. We told stories about childhood trips Jere, David and I went on with mom, like four corners and Angels landing, and all just had a fun time chatting.
On the drive home, we listened to the Sia Christmas album which is Amazing. At home we let the kids hang candy canes on the tree, and then we all cuddled while listening to Christmas music. It was divine.
We then put the kids down, and I looked everywhere for my wallet. I hadn’t seen it in a day, and I was starting to get worried. The more I looked, the more difficult it was to not let worry creep in. I even went to target to check their lost and found. After about an hour of searching, I found it in the crack of the couch cushion. I don’t know how it got there. That couch is very mysterious. We lifted only two cushions before finding my wallet and there was also a full magazine, cards, money and other lost items. I just don’t get how it gobbles things up so mercilessly. Anyway, I’m so glad my wallet was found!
Then Lily and I decompressed over season 2 of “Yellowstone” and that was a ton of fun. I’m nervous about how heavy of a workday tomorrow is, but these last four days were heavenly.