Thankful Itinerants

You know who has really spectacular weather of a Thanksgiving week? The Arizonans, those lucky lucksters. I enjoyed seeing everyone bundled up in sweaters and fleeces during the shivery 70 degree days. Brr!

I'm lazily relying on pictures, as is my habit of late. There are a few bits I don't have any good pictures of, though, like the night my parents and I drove the girls out of town in an attempt to get a better look at the stars. It was moderately successful- we saw Mars and Saturn in addition to the Pleiades, though neither my parents nor I could pin down the Big Dipper. During the singalong on the way back, my dad indulged in one of his endless novelty songs, "Found a Peanut." About six verses in, Naomi whispered to me, "Mommy, is he just making this up?" Hee.

In addition, I had a fun night with some high school chums at a local sports bar, dinner out with my sisters, and a trip to the zoo with my brother's family and my parents. Thanksgiving dinner was remarkably early, it seemed to me (12:01 p.m., approximately), but the turkey was delicious and we had a good time. I was toying with making the weird cranberry relish they are forever flogging on NPR, but I didn't. Anyone ever made that?

And now, the pictures...

I have already mentioned that my mom buys the best toys. Good job, Gramma!








On Tuesday morning, I took the girls to Hole in the Rock at Papago Park. They loved climbing around on the rocks, especially Naomi, who pretended to be a bear the entire time.




The Zoo! Remember when Muriel was all terrified of the livestock? No longer! She loved this goat with her whole heart.


I made up a name for the goat, Buttercup, before I realized that the nice Zoo people had put the name of each goat on their collar. (Its real name was CJ.) Muriel really believed Buttercup was hers, and kept objecting if any other child attempted to make contact with the creature.


Meanwhile, I was mildly obsessed with this giant bird, the Kori Bustard, an animal I had never heard of before. 42 pounds! Heaviest flight-capable bird!

Thanksgiving!


I got this idea from my friend, A.- the kids had a good time assembling assemblies from mini-marshmallows and uncooked spaghetti. Muriel just ate a couple of marshmallows.

Beautiful Thanksgiving afternoon- sunny, warm, and so delightful. Except that about ten minutes after this photo was taken, as I was sitting on the floor of the porch playing with the kids, Muriel decided to throw up down my back. Whee!

Muriel had been a sick little insomniac for the first three nights, had about two decent nights' sleep, and then in honor of Thanksgiving, picked up a nice stomach virus, probably from Buttercup. She was already in a lightweight phase, but three days of being sick and not eating followed by two days of throwing up and not eating has resulted in our little skinny thing being an even littler, skinnier thing. I'm trying not to worry. More vitamins and jello for her, maybe.

Here are the pictures I didn't post, because I can't get Lightroom to work in a recognizable way right now- one of Jim and Naomi in the plane on the way home- hooray for having another parent along! And one of our friends' new baby, D., who joined us (along with her parents! yea!) for a terrific former band nerd brunch the day after Thanksgiving. So wonderful to see old friends, and new little ones.

That's the trip roundup. The holiday open house is this weekend- Will I distribute the invitations to the neighbors on time? Will the power go out? Will anyone show up? Stay tuned...