Road Rally, Thanksgiving, Christmas, and Good-bye
This past weekend ended up being crazy busy and I didn't spend much time in E. Lansing.
Friday, November 11
My youngest brother, Alex, and his wife, Cari, came up to East Lansing to spend the day and night. We had dinner plans but they surprised me by stopping in at the office to pick me up for lunch! I took them to McAllister's for lunch and it was so busy! Alex and I shot straw papers at each other, Cari and I grabbed Alex's potato chips, and Alex stuck his pickle on my straw... yum, pickle flavored lemonade. We drove separately to Claddagh's for dinner and spent 10 minutes looking for parking spots. Once at the door, we realized they had free valet parking. Dur. We spun pennies on the table while waiting for our fantastic dinners. Cari and I went shopping after dinner to look at outfits for the family pictures on Saturday. I dropped her off at the hotel and Michelle and I headed off to NCG for some movie time.
Saturday, November 12
Saturday morning came much too quickly and Alex and Cari were running behind. We met my mom at Walmarts to finish coordinating outfits. There was much posing, grumpy faces and a group waiting to shoot after us but we finally got to do some fun pictures! The fun pics came out great and we ended up getting our package of those and then smaller shots of the "nice" family pics. I can't wait to actually get them back. Breakfast at Denny's turned into lunch as the food took an hour to come up. The manager took off 3 of the meals and discounted the other two. Sweet! Everybody went their own ways for the afternoon.
I headed down to Ryn's about 3 so that I could see Tyler and Dylan before Kelly came to pick them up. Tyler came running through the house Fussy! and flung himself up into my arms! After chatting with him a bit I put him down and picked up the patient Dylan. Dylan didn't say much but he grinned a lot. Tyler wanted to see my car so I took them outside and they looked in the windows at Uncle Ryn's stuff that I had brought down. Although the boys wanted to play the squish game, it was time for some dance, dance monkey-lution where Ryn proceeded to kick my butt. Kelly stopped by briefly to pick up the boys and shortly after that it was time to head off to the road rally.
We opened our road rally pack and got a great start, until we realized that there were two locations for the business and we were at the wrong one. In an attempt to catch up with everybody else, we turned left (don't you mean right) on red where it was posted that you couldn't and Ryn's dad lipped off to the officer that pulled us over. Even with a bit of sass, he managed to not get a ticket due to his clean slate. And we were off again. A dyslexic address put us on the wrong part of Mound and we had to backtrack to find the correct one. In a later clue that demanded we use the pen provided and told us the answer is in your hand we fumbled due to the missing pen. Ryn's mom wrote on the clue envelope No Pen as a defense to our not being able to solve the clue. Later, the pen showed up hiding amongst other pens in the car. To preserve our defense, Ryn's mom threw the pen out the window. Ryn jinxed us by telling us that his least favorite clue was eating jelly bellies and a couple of clues later, we were trying different flavors. We weren't having much luck so I called my mom and she looked up their website and helped us out with the flavors. Towards the end VanDyke and the VanDyke Expressway threw us for a loop and we relied on Michelle's mapquest skills to locate our address on Hall Rd. Although we didn't qualify in the time limit, we had a lot of laughs over the craziness of everything that happened!
Sunday, November 13
I left Ryn's EARLY to make it home by 9:30 so that we could start on the Thanksgiving cooking. We celebrated Thanksgiving/Christmas this past weekend because it was the last time that Alex could come home before deploying to Iraq. My mom and I cooked and baked and stirred all day long! The turkey wasn't ready until way after dinner but we had fixed a ham as well so it ended up being ok. There were also rolls, cranberries, cukes and sour cream, sweet potatoes, garlic mashed potatoes, olives (yuck), applesauce, apple pie and chocolate cream pie. Before dinner we opened our gifts. I had only wanted two things, a digital camera and the Fraggle Rock season one on DVD and my family got me both. We picked up the IPod for Alex that he wanted as well as several other things. My mom got an old school nintendo with Dr. Mario, Super Mario 3 and Tetris. Tony received a portable DVD player and several other things and Cari got a beautiful necklace from Alex, an IOU for a hope chest and I'm doing up family recipes for her. The presents were such a small part of the day as the focus was on quality family time. Dinner was fantastic and everybody was stuffed with enough for packing left-overs. After dinner there was some competitive Dr. Mario and Mario 3 playing with my mom, alex and I and it was a sweet reminder of childhood.
Monday, November 14
Starting the day by playing Dr. Mario is just as good as ending the day with it. Monday was relaxed until it came time to pack Alex up and he was running behind. We piled into the minivan and I drove us down to Detroit Metro. My dad was waiting for us and we found out that they weren't going to let all of us go down to see Alex off. Luckily, the woman checking people in next to our guy overheard and said she would get us passes. We went down to B7 to wait and goof around before they called for boarding. After hugs and kisses, Alex got on the plane to fly back to TX. It was a very difficult good-bye. The thought of my baby brother being over in Iraq is a hard concept and one that even with a year and a half to prepare for it I'm not ready for.
Being on edge about Alex makes me more easily upset about other things. I fussed at Ryn and made him mad enough to hang up on me which was enough to trigger the tears that I didn't cry on Monday. He's been difficult at best to get a hold of since and it's fussing me up more than it should. It is horrible to be this afraid for somebody and not be able to do anything about it. And as much as nobody wants to say it and nobody wants to think it, it is nearly impossible to not glimpse the thought this may have been the last time I see him alive. It won't be, of course. I know that.
Friday, November 11
My youngest brother, Alex, and his wife, Cari, came up to East Lansing to spend the day and night. We had dinner plans but they surprised me by stopping in at the office to pick me up for lunch! I took them to McAllister's for lunch and it was so busy! Alex and I shot straw papers at each other, Cari and I grabbed Alex's potato chips, and Alex stuck his pickle on my straw... yum, pickle flavored lemonade. We drove separately to Claddagh's for dinner and spent 10 minutes looking for parking spots. Once at the door, we realized they had free valet parking. Dur. We spun pennies on the table while waiting for our fantastic dinners. Cari and I went shopping after dinner to look at outfits for the family pictures on Saturday. I dropped her off at the hotel and Michelle and I headed off to NCG for some movie time.
Saturday, November 12
Saturday morning came much too quickly and Alex and Cari were running behind. We met my mom at Walmarts to finish coordinating outfits. There was much posing, grumpy faces and a group waiting to shoot after us but we finally got to do some fun pictures! The fun pics came out great and we ended up getting our package of those and then smaller shots of the "nice" family pics. I can't wait to actually get them back. Breakfast at Denny's turned into lunch as the food took an hour to come up. The manager took off 3 of the meals and discounted the other two. Sweet! Everybody went their own ways for the afternoon.
I headed down to Ryn's about 3 so that I could see Tyler and Dylan before Kelly came to pick them up. Tyler came running through the house Fussy! and flung himself up into my arms! After chatting with him a bit I put him down and picked up the patient Dylan. Dylan didn't say much but he grinned a lot. Tyler wanted to see my car so I took them outside and they looked in the windows at Uncle Ryn's stuff that I had brought down. Although the boys wanted to play the squish game, it was time for some dance, dance monkey-lution where Ryn proceeded to kick my butt. Kelly stopped by briefly to pick up the boys and shortly after that it was time to head off to the road rally.
We opened our road rally pack and got a great start, until we realized that there were two locations for the business and we were at the wrong one. In an attempt to catch up with everybody else, we turned left (don't you mean right) on red where it was posted that you couldn't and Ryn's dad lipped off to the officer that pulled us over. Even with a bit of sass, he managed to not get a ticket due to his clean slate. And we were off again. A dyslexic address put us on the wrong part of Mound and we had to backtrack to find the correct one. In a later clue that demanded we use the pen provided and told us the answer is in your hand we fumbled due to the missing pen. Ryn's mom wrote on the clue envelope No Pen as a defense to our not being able to solve the clue. Later, the pen showed up hiding amongst other pens in the car. To preserve our defense, Ryn's mom threw the pen out the window. Ryn jinxed us by telling us that his least favorite clue was eating jelly bellies and a couple of clues later, we were trying different flavors. We weren't having much luck so I called my mom and she looked up their website and helped us out with the flavors. Towards the end VanDyke and the VanDyke Expressway threw us for a loop and we relied on Michelle's mapquest skills to locate our address on Hall Rd. Although we didn't qualify in the time limit, we had a lot of laughs over the craziness of everything that happened!
Sunday, November 13
I left Ryn's EARLY to make it home by 9:30 so that we could start on the Thanksgiving cooking. We celebrated Thanksgiving/Christmas this past weekend because it was the last time that Alex could come home before deploying to Iraq. My mom and I cooked and baked and stirred all day long! The turkey wasn't ready until way after dinner but we had fixed a ham as well so it ended up being ok. There were also rolls, cranberries, cukes and sour cream, sweet potatoes, garlic mashed potatoes, olives (yuck), applesauce, apple pie and chocolate cream pie. Before dinner we opened our gifts. I had only wanted two things, a digital camera and the Fraggle Rock season one on DVD and my family got me both. We picked up the IPod for Alex that he wanted as well as several other things. My mom got an old school nintendo with Dr. Mario, Super Mario 3 and Tetris. Tony received a portable DVD player and several other things and Cari got a beautiful necklace from Alex, an IOU for a hope chest and I'm doing up family recipes for her. The presents were such a small part of the day as the focus was on quality family time. Dinner was fantastic and everybody was stuffed with enough for packing left-overs. After dinner there was some competitive Dr. Mario and Mario 3 playing with my mom, alex and I and it was a sweet reminder of childhood.
Monday, November 14
Starting the day by playing Dr. Mario is just as good as ending the day with it. Monday was relaxed until it came time to pack Alex up and he was running behind. We piled into the minivan and I drove us down to Detroit Metro. My dad was waiting for us and we found out that they weren't going to let all of us go down to see Alex off. Luckily, the woman checking people in next to our guy overheard and said she would get us passes. We went down to B7 to wait and goof around before they called for boarding. After hugs and kisses, Alex got on the plane to fly back to TX. It was a very difficult good-bye. The thought of my baby brother being over in Iraq is a hard concept and one that even with a year and a half to prepare for it I'm not ready for.
Being on edge about Alex makes me more easily upset about other things. I fussed at Ryn and made him mad enough to hang up on me which was enough to trigger the tears that I didn't cry on Monday. He's been difficult at best to get a hold of since and it's fussing me up more than it should. It is horrible to be this afraid for somebody and not be able to do anything about it. And as much as nobody wants to say it and nobody wants to think it, it is nearly impossible to not glimpse the thought this may have been the last time I see him alive. It won't be, of course. I know that.