Weekend Notes

There were some happenings around our house this weekend.

The big event was M’s first true high school dance on Saturday, her winter formal. As you would imagine, this has involved several weeks of preparations both for her attire and who she would attend the dance with. And then the direct prep dominated our Saturday morning and afternoon when she got her nails and hair done.[1] She ended up inviting three friends over to get ready at our house then take pictures and ride to the dance together. That had a touch of drama as girls jumped in and out of that group because they either got dates in the last week or had other things pile up and limit their availability before the dance. But she ended up with a good group. Prep went well, the dance was fun, and she seemed to have a really good time.

That prep on Saturday did mess up one of her sister’s schedules. I never looked at the calendar Saturday morning like I normally do to get a lay of the day ahead. Thus I totally forgot C had her first volleyball practice that afternoon. I went out with S and L to do some Christmas shopping in-between M’s appointments and when I came home fell asleep watching basketball. I woke around 3:00 and C came down and told me we had missed practice. Fortunately this was the first practice, games don’t start until late January, and attendance is pretty spotty until we get through the holidays. I did feel bad, though, and apologized to her coach. Not sure if this is typical treatment of the middle kid or I should have saved this for L.

So this isn’t really weekend news but we did gain a new nephew on Wednesday. He surprised us, coming about a month early. Fortunately both he and mom are doing great, although he’s going to be in the NICU for awhile and we won’t be able to meet him until he’s released.

This was obviously unexpected and I was charged with picking his three-year-old brother up from preschool when my sister-in-law went to the hospital Wednesday. Little R has been around me a lot, but not a ton this fall. And it’s the first time in probably six months that he’s hung out just with me. Thus he had a confused look on his face when I picked him up Wednesday. As soon as I told him we were going to go pick the girls up he got a big smile on his face and jumped into my arms.

Same thing happened Friday when I picked him up from daycare. His cousin had already left and he had a meltdown over that. He was still wiping tears from his eyes when I showed up. When I told him the girls were in the car, here came the smile and he went running toward the door to see them.

I guess the girls are more popular than Uncle D these days.

Aside from those two big things, it was a fairly quiet weekend. We did a little holiday prep, as family begin arriving for Christmas later this week. I’m putting off much of the cleaning and arranging as long as I can.

This is the girls’ final week of school. M has finals today through Thursday. Her classes only run from 8:50-noon all week, with two finals per day excepting Wednesday when she only has one and finishes at 10:15. She’s nervous but seems pretty well prepared for everything.

A little wrench got thrown in our plans when the first big snowstorm of the year hit overnight. We got the call from St. P’s announcing a two-hour delay just before 6:00 AM. Fortunately there wasn’t enough snow to push CHS back more than the hour they were already starting late. We got between 3–4” of snow, which with the size of our driveway was enough for me to bust out the snowblower before S left for work. Good thing I made sure it was running on Saturday! We’re supposed to get 3–5 more inches of snow later today, so I’ll likely be using it again soon.