the day after . . .

We had a day of fun. Yes, we did. The Ladybug family and Lessa's clan and the PurpleMoose went to the Christmas Comes to Kenai festivities. This is a day after Thanksgiving tradition - it used to be held out of doors in the blowing snow and chilly temps, but last year the Chamber of Commerce decided to utilize some empty store space and held at least the Santa visit inside. Yay.

This is the place, btw, that we all went to on Tuesday to decorate the purple tree. They had several trees all gussied up today - all for auction - winner of each to take it home and display for the season.

But back to our exciting morning. We arrived prior to the 11:00 a.m. opening time and had to sit in our cars until they opened the doors. Once we made it inside each of the children was handed a numbered slip of paper . . . our group was numbered 9 through 14. Then they were given cups of hot chocolate and a cookie each and sat at a table to color pictures or work word puzzles while waiting.

When that got to be too long, Kinzie and Timothy and JessiAnna took Nana for a walk - around and around and around the room. We rocked to the music the radio station deejays were playing and had a great time.

And then . . . .

. . . what to our wondering eyes should appear, but a little old man and . . .
a big honking fire truck!! Woo-hoo! Santa has arrived. Yay.



HO-HO-HO! The man himself had finally arrived. Everyone gathered around and waited patiently (not) for their turn. We were glad to have arrived early enough to get low numbers.
Each one of the children had their turn to snuggle with Santa and to ask him for something special (generally at some promptng), then to receive a candy cane and a Rudolph mask. Even the Ladybug sat on his lap.

While the grands all then went for some lunch, Nana went to her weigh-in for the month. (ta-dah!!! another 5.5 pounds! That's a total of 16.5 pounds lost since September 18th. Happy, happy, joy, joy moose dancing around the room. October, November, and December weigh-ins are unofficial. We will be going back to the hospital in January for an official weigh-in and other such hooha. (hi, Batty! I said hooha just for you - heh)

Another tradition for the day after Thanksgiving is going to the big craft fair. That was my next stop. I wandered through and visited with friends and checked out the new stuff - for a little over an hour. Only spent $31, which I thought was quite good. Just couldn't find anything that called out to me - take me home, take me home. But it's neat to visit with people and to mingle. Mix and a mingle and a jingle . . . . that's the Jingle Bell Rock!

The last two traditions I did not take part in this year - the Electric Light Parade, and the fireworks display. You see, we have 20+ hour daylight on the 4th of July, so we save our fireworks until the day after Thanksgiving. Both daughters and their families went to see the parade and fireworks. (I was walking on my treadmill. It was a pretty fair trade, I guess.)

So, that's about it from our end of the world. Hope that you have a wonderful weekend. My week off is just about over and I will be heading back to my desk on Monday. I plan to enjoy these last two days off. ;-))

Night all.

Posted by Purplemoose at November 28, 2003 10:40 PM