Well, that was a very refreshing break from reality over the last couple of weeks! Everything has been SO different around here. I'm still not at all used to Noah not living here anymore. Jerry's work schedule changed drastically, but he had a week off and then a long holiday weekend. Having him home a lot and Noah gone a lot has been such a big change.
I wish I could say that we did all sorts of fun things while Jerry was home, but we actually just enjoyed our down time at home. Like I said in my previous post, we celebrated Christmas on Christmas Eve with the boys and their girlfriends.
Noah gifted me this welcome mat that has a black cat on it and says "Welcome, peasants." I thought it was funny when Estelle laid on it--her eyes look nearly identical to the ones on the mat. And if she could talk, she would totally be sarcastic like this.
The day before that, we'd gone to Brian's house because Luke and Riley were there. He invited my parents, Nathan, and my family to come over in the morning and watch the kids open Christmas gifts. I miss having little kids like that on Christmas morning! It was fun watching them get so excited.
Riley is super into "mini brands". They are ridiculous--teeny tiny toy versions of actual brand items you would find in a grocery store--and SO expensive for what you get. When we took her to Barnes & Noble one time she picked out a mini brands item; it contained five pieces and I think it was $10. Each one is about the size of the tip of your thumb and it's just a piece of plastic.
Anyway, Brian had actually found a big container of them on Facebook Marketplace and he got her a little toy store for them. She was super excited and wanted to play with it right away. When I helped her open it, there were SO MANY PIECES to put together, including a page of tiny stickers that had to go on the plastic pieces. Brian is lucky I like putting things together because I spent (literally) well over an hour assembling this store!
After Christmas, Jeanie and Shawn came in from the upper peninsula for a couple of days. Jeanie and I walked all the dogs (she has three basset hounds, and I have Joey). Then we ran a few errands--nothing exciting, but it was good to spend time with her one-on-one since we never really get to do that.
There was a very big Lions (football) game on Saturday and I'm sure if you follow football at all, you heard about the shitshow that it turned into at the end, haha. The Lions would have won but the referee made a bad call--EVERYBODY agreed that he'd screwed up--and they lost. Lions fans were so angry because it was a very important game.
On New Year's Eve, Luke and Riley came over for the afternoon/evening. I was hoping that my other niece, Shelby, would be able to come too, but she had other plans. Eli went to a party at the golf course where he'd been working (they are closed now for the season), so it was just Jerry and me with the kiddos. We told them we were going to have a "party" to ring in the new year.
My mom was going to be taking them home (to Minnesota) early the next morning. (She has flight privileges though Brian, so she can fly with them and hand them off to Becky at the airport in Minnesota.) She didn't want them to stay up late, so Jerry and I pulled up the Times Square event from 2022 to watch the ball drop--hahaha! At "midnight" we shot confetti cannons in the living room and the kids loved that.
They were SO funny all day because of all the things we could do, they just kept wanting to run on the treadmill. And at their ages, they wanted to one-up each other with their speed. If Luke did 5.0 mph, Riley wanted to then run at 5.5. And then Luke wanted 5.6. And so on. By the time my mom arrived, they were running at 7.1 mph, hahaha. I wish I loved the treadmill like they do!
In the afternoon, I got a phone call and was SHOCKED (in a good way) to see it was Del--my boss from Curves when I worked there from 2003-2005. Even though she's much older than me, we were close friends. I hadn't talked to her in probably 10 years, so when I saw her number on my phone, I was excited to hear from her. We chatted for a while and it was nice to catch up, but there is way too much to catch up on, so I suggested we get together and talk some more. It was great to hear from her.
The very best part of the break--probably the highlight of the year--was when Jerry got to show Luke and Riley the Ghostbusters movie for the first time. Jerry is obsessed with Ghostbusters and he'd been waiting for them to be old enough to watch the movie without getting scared. He even busted out his proton pack and goggles, haha.
I cannot even describe how giddy he was when the kids were immediately interested in the movie. They started asking him all sorts of questions about the ghosts, so he took out a big Ghostbusters book that he has. It contains all sorts of trivia and behind-the-scenes info. Luke actually told him to hold on a minute, then he grabbed the remote control and paused the movie so he didn't miss anything. That was when I knew he was genuinely fascinated.
My heart was totally melting while I watched them with Jerry. I haven't seen Jerry that excited in at least a year! He doesn't know anyone who is into Ghostbusters (I've watched it with him a couple of times, and I even wore a Ghostbusters costume for Halloween in 2022, but I wouldn't call myself a "fan") so he doesn't get the chance to talk with another big fan. When the kids were asking questions a mile a minute, he was thrilled to get to tell them all about it.
It's sounds silly, but seeing that interaction was the PERFECT way to end 2023, which was probably the most difficult year we've had in our entire marriage. (I don't mean that our marriage was suffering; we just had to deal with SO MANY stressors all year, as well as the second half of 2022.) It was completely heartwarming to watch the kids showing so much interest in Ghostbusters and Jerry being ridiculously happy to watch it with them and answer questions.
And finally, we spent the day yesterday planning out some goals for 2024. I'm going to do a separate post with my goals for the year (I'm *that* person who still does resolutions), so I won't get into it here.
The last couple of weeks have been busy enough to keep from getting bored, but we also had enough down time to relax and watch movies and just enjoy some laziness. Today, it's back to reality!
Thanks for sharing. I can see how happy Jerry was with the kids.. very nice 🙂
ReplyDeleteWhat a perfect holiday and end of the year :D
ReplyDeleteI cannot believe that your niece and nephew have already mastered the Jerry Face. This was a beautiful piece about a nice holiday season.
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