Hello and happy Monday!

I hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving. Justin and I spent the first part of the day visiting with a few of his family members; we watched the parade and ate dinner with his grandfather, his uncle, his great-aunt and her daughter. It was so nice catching up with all of them and were even able to do some pretty solid wildlife watching when some deer came cruising through the yard. It started off with a couple of does, but then we were surprised to see a buck come strutting through too. I hadn’t ever seen a buck up close like that and I’ve got to be honest, I was a little nervous – those antlers are no joke. It occurred to me that he probably wouldn’t be able to work a door knob, though, so I just creeped out onto the porch to take a picture and then scooted back inside.

After dinner and dessert #1 with Justin’s family, we hightailed it to my cousin’s house just in time for dessert #2. Most of my extended family was there so we got the best of both worlds; we were pooped by the end of the day but it was great to be able to spend time with both of our families.

Friday was my 10-year high school reunion, which was odd considering I think I’m still 23. Seriously, someone asked me recently how old I am and I told him 23, which I am not. I am, in fact, 28 but it was definitely too late to correct myself so I just had to go with it. So even though I think that another 5-year reunion would have been more appropriate, it was actually the big 1-0. I got dinner beforehand with some friends and then we headed over. It was a little awkward for everyone at first, I think, but eventually folks got back into the swing of things and it was nice catching up with old classmates.

It seems all of the yelling-over-the-music didn’t help the sore throat that I had been fighting since the previous day because I woke up on Saturday without a voice and feeling lousy. Justin diagnosed me with laryngitis and I was a total bum all weekend. Justin and Brody did a great job trying to nurse me back to health with treats like sherbert, turkey noodle soup, and stealing the slipper off of my foot and running under the bed with it. I got ambitious on Saturday and convinced Justin that I was healthy enough to go out for brunch, but once we were both showered and dressed, I realized that I was not okay to go out to brunch and was much better suited to lie in bed and whisper to Brody to try to get him to bring over the computer and put on Harry Potter. In case you were wondering, he refused.

By the time Sunday night rolled around, I had only dragged myself out of the house twice since I got home on Friday night: once to bring B to the dog park with Justin and the other to get cough medicine at the drugstore. The dog park went much better than the drugstore run – I have a knack for busting into a coughing fit at inopportune times, and the checkout line at the store was no exception. If any of you ever get coughing fits, you understand how much of a flippin’ leper you look like when you’re coughing so hard that tears run down your dumb, red face and the only thing that helps is drinking water very, very slowly while aftershock coughs make you snort the water you’re drinking. It looks as pretty as it sounds. My guess is that people were probably wondering why I wasn’t guzzling the cough medicine instead of the water.

So yes, the dog park went better than the drugstore run. Brody had a great time and made some new dog friends. It was a cold but sunny day around here, which felt perfect after being cooped up in the house all weekend.

a mini cairn

pooped!

Now that Thanksgiving is behind is, it’s officially the holiday season! Off to go check out those Cyber Monday deals and get started on some Christmas shopping…