I got my new bumpersticker in the mail!
Thursday, we headed to Mathea's house and had dinner with Matt's whole family.
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| It's the cousins! There's one more on the way, a girl due in February. That will be 4 boys and 4 girls! I know stripey boy, Bryson, is a first cousin, he's Emily, Matt's sister's boy. She's due with the unnamed girl in February. The yellow girl, pink skirt and blue shirt are his cousin Mathea's three, Ainsley, Kian and Brennan. I think they are considered second cousins. Bren is the cutest baby, she still has the pout lips and that guffaw laugh that I miss SO much. |
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| Chandler and Jake were much too old to roll down the hill in the leaves with the little kids! For about 30 seconds! Even Ben did a little interacting! |
While we were there, she was looking for someone to take a stand-up freezer off her hands, she'd gotten a bigger one from work and an identical one from a friend who needed them to store it for him, so she no longer needed the 'little one'. It's the same size as our refrigerator! It's on the porch until we can find some place to put it, the truly small one we had that quit working was on the back porch, where Jake now lives. We will figure something out and for now, it's REALLY nice to have the extra storage.
We went to the grocery store while frozen breads and veggies are nearly half off and picked up enough to partially fill it. We will keep stocking it over the next few weeks, I will finally have enough ice on hand! Matt and I did a high-five after we loaded it up, it is pretty exciting to have enough food for ahead, not just the next couple of weeks. It's been SO tight all year, it really has not been a good year for us for extras, though we have been paying down debt and braces and trying to add to our savings. As funny as it may sound, it felt like we were doing okay for a change, having food we don't specifically NEED yet.
Today we wanted to hike, but not have to deal with traffic or crazies out to risk their lives to save $50 on something someone else is going to stand in line December 26th to return for store credit...anyway, we talked about Hurricane Creek and ended up deciding to hike here instead.
I always forget how much I love the woods here. Yeah, there's no trail and I end up lost and bleeding before it's over, and the way the hills fold, I sometimes get disoriented as to which side of which creek I am on...but it's so peaceful back there. You could wander for several hours before running into another house. Today we saw deer, which the dogs chased and Kuma bayed, Zephyr looked at us with her ears in the surprised mode and looked after them and looked back and we told her to go get that deer, so she ran off, barking and barking, she was SO happy. About 90 seconds later, she was back, still just as thrilled about chasing deer with the big dogs.
A while later, all 3 dogs were in the log road bed, resting up and looking around when another deer went sailing past them about 20 feet down the hill. None of them even turned their head. So much for the amazing hunting pack. Kuma ate one of my butterscotches! I don't know if he would even know what to do with a deer. He likes shrimp, though.
Tomorrow Daddy and his wife will be here for lunch. I have not hosted them before, I don't think his wife has been to our house. Wait-no, she came to see Chandler when she was first born. Daddy will pop up from time to time, once or twice a year, but I have never cooked for him. If I had any sense, I would be off here and scrubbing the house and trying recipes, but it's such a foreign concept, I don't even know to panic. It would never be clean enough anyway and she will probably have a heart attack before she even gets to the porch. She hates cats and I have 4 who love to visit with visitors.
Her grandson grew up less than a mile from here, there were times I would be in town to see Daddy and she would be out here. I sometimes think because I don't gush my emotions, people think I don't like them. Not sure how to change that, but it has to be me. Who else has in-laws and steps that are not bad people at all who are totally unwilling to cross their threshold? Matt's dad drove the freezer here in his truck, nearly 2 hours one-way, and would not come inside even though it was freezing out. Matt's mom owns the house and she has not come here in...? I think she stopped in back in February when she had her taxes done, but Matt thinks she just called and we met her somewhere. Maybe I need better hair. Something that says 'not a serial killer'. Maybe the house reeks and I am oblivious. That's long been a worry of mine. With a neighborhood that reeks of chicken manure about half the time, I can't really tell, just that it does not make my nose hairs curl. That's hardly definitive.
Anyway, that's the news from the castle, I am off to re-bandage my hiking wounds and watch a Batman cartoon and hit the sack. We have company coming tomorrow and I need to be up early to buy some scented candles and maybe do something with my hair...
