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Saturday, November 24, 2012

And Life Goes On

We had a pleasant family Thanksgiving.  We do not have family living near us, so only our daughter, her husband and our two grandsons were here.  Their German au pair, Anka, also came.  It is always interesting to share the holiday with an au pair because they tell us about traditions in their countries. This was the first time she had tasted turkey.  She said it was good.

Our son was not able to come this year and that made me a bit sad.

On Friday we took them to Henry Cowell Redwoods State Park to see our closest redwood grove.  It is not the most impressive, but this might be the Anka's only opportunity to see the big trees.  

There are none down near San Diego, and I don't think she will get to the northern part of the state during her year.



We also went for lunch and walkabout in downtown Los Gatos.  Some of the street trees are finally at their peak of color.


Each of our grandsons has his own special interest.

The twelve-year-old has always loved math, and has now found some internet sites that are helping him learn about math that's quite ahead of his grade.


Here he is not doing homework, he's just having fun.

The nine-year-old loves all things having to do with food and cooking.  The high point of the weekend for him was a trip to a local specialty shop for oil and balsamic vinegar tasting.  


It is now Saturday afternoon.  They just left for their long drive home to San Diego. We will see them again when we go there for Christmas.

I just wish these two holidays were further apart, or they lived a little closer to us.  

Maybe when we are full-timers we can spend the month between Thanksgiving and Christmas down there.  

Something to look forward to.  But now we will have to get back to work on the house for a few weeks.  We finished the stairwell deck railings.  The only ones left are on the upper deck, and we have decided to let them be until spring.  We will also do the stairs then.

Craig is eager to get started finishing four new doors and a bunch of baseboards and door trim wood that he bought last spring.  When the weather started to get nice in May he shifted to outdoor painting work.  Now it is time to shift back to concentrating on indoor projects.

I also want him to do a little patch work on some of the drywall up in my sewing loft.  It was damaged before we had the new roof put on two years ago, and has to be fixed so I can paint the loft and small bedroom up there.

My goal for between now and Christmas is to help Craig and to clear more stuff out of the studio.  Someday it will have to become a bedroom again. 

So, as the title of this post says, "Life Goes On."

What will you be doing between now and December 25th?

14 comments:

  1. We will be emptying out this house! :) And organizing the fiver. We move to our first fulltime campground in two and a half weeks.

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  2. Your grandsons look so precious. Each has interesting interests! I'll be getting ready for my Quartzsite trip. Lots to do in the next 30-something days.

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  3. I sure hope I'll be getting a new hip! :)

    As a former math teacher, I applaud your grandson that finds math to be fun.

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  4. Both of your grandsons have interesting, useful hobbies, you must be proud of them! Sounds like a good Thanksgiving visit. :)

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  5. nice day with your family! soon you will be able to see them whenever you want!
    between now and Christmas..shopping wrapping cooking working decorating!

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  6. Math makes my head hurt. I think I received a shot against learning it very well.

    It's always nice to be able to get with family, even if it can't be all of them.

    I helped my brother pick up a car for his wife today that he is giving her for her birthday. It's an older car but he did a lot of work to it to make it hers. She will be seeing it for the first time tomorrow on her birthday!

    I hope the rest of your weekend goes well Merikay!

    Erik

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  7. The Grandson's would make a good team. One to do all the cooking & the other to do all the counting of calories. From now to Christmas (& beyond) we will probably be happily working around our house both inside & out.

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  8. Your grandsons sound delightful. How wonderful that they have such adult interests :-)

    You must be glad to be taking a break from the stairs...

    We won't be doing much of anything between now and Christmas. Maybe we'll get started on the basement again... or maybe not. We aren't having much motivation these days.

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  9. So nice to be with family for a holiday. We are currently in Houston with George's brother. Between now and Christmas we will be making our way towards California to be with my mom & dad and son for that holiday.

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  10. I hope we are finally on the road. We also want to be in S.D. for Christmas with one of our daughters.

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  11. Wow, a kid that does math for fun above and beyond his grade level? I'm impressed! I HATE math with a passion because I was never any good at it. Probably am LD in that area. Bet you'll be able to see family more when you full time. We try and we do get to see our children more this way.

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  12. How wonderful you got to see your daughter and grandsons for Thanksgiving. The one thing I don't like about this new lifestyle is I don't get to see my sons as often as I would like. Being mobile, we could go to them, but earning money so we can continue our dream gets in the way. We'll be working at Amazon between now and Christmas. Not my favorite thing to do, but it replenishes the bank account so we can explore during the winter. There are always trade-offs. I'll be seeing my boys at Christmas! Can't wait!!

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  13. I chuckled when I saw that the trees in your area are now in full color. Ours have been devoid of leaves for a while now. Your grandsons are adorable and smart.

    We will be hibernating inside, hopefully clearing out stuff we don't need.

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  14. Just like you working on getting things cleared out of the house. Getting ready to hit the road.

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