Thanksgiving weekend

Can you see the animal hidden in the trees? Hint: Big antlers...

It's hard to believe the Thanksgiving weekend has come and gone, I'm sure everyone else feels that way.

We had a wonderful Thanksgiving day. The 5 of us drove about 1 1/2 hrs to the lake home of our friends Rod and Elizabeth, and their son John. Elizabeth's family was there -- there was a boy A.'s age and a 4 year old girl that N. played with all day. I. hung out with the 3 boys -- they had a blast roaming around in the countryside, having all kinds of adventures that they don't get to have here in the city. Rod and Elizabeth's home is in a gated community, on land that had previously been privately owned and used for hunting. There are all kinds of animals around, like elk (I think?) and even a zebra that the previous owner kept. It was interesting when the kids came in for desert after being out all over the place and told us "we just saw a zebra by the woods". Whoa. Normally I would have been a bit skittish about my kids being out unsupervised like that, but 10 year old John knew the ins and outs and his parents were confident that they'd be OK. Since it's a gated community with not many homes, I wasn't too concerned about wierdos. Just wierd animals. All three kids LOVED it there (N. got to see the zebra when she went on a golf cart ride with her daddy). It was a lovely dinner, and so nice to be invited to share with another family since ours are so far away.

The rest of the weekend was a little slow yet busy all at the same time. The kids had lots of friends coming and going, and we were busy "Christmas-ing" -- getting the halls decked. I did a little shopping, but not too much. We ate out, watched a few movies at home -- the standard fare.

It will be good to get back into the routine again, but I always enjoy having this time for us all to be together (although there is inevitably a point at which we all drive each other crazy!!!)