This year, I wanted to kick off the holidays by going to WildLanterns at the Seattle Zoo on the Wednesday night before Thanksgiving. My parents joined us and we swapped out an “I don’t do zoos” Wes for a friend of Piper’s and I got to enjoy a magical opening of the holidays. Tomorrow, Thanksgiving!

Each of my brothers has given me two more kids to love up on and one I have to drive a little further to see. But I enjoy the area much and the family more. We brought Nugs with us as the 2nd grader loves reptiles–he travels better than a cranky middle child whose life was ruined when she had to go on a family walk on a sunny day. But that’s another story. I got a few runs in, we got to explore the season finale of the local farmer’s market, Kyla joined Dwayne and me at the Portland Japanese Gardens, and Brian made us delicious breakfasts. We can’t wait to return the hosting favor!

Piper organized a strawberry-pretzel turkey food craft. Guess which one we made?

Step 1: Arrange to be born on Nov 10, so that you will always have the day off after your birthday, and often, your birthday as well.

Step 2: Go to the cabin on Thursday night with youngest child, whose best friend lives on the island. This is basically like going to the cabin by yourself.

Step 3: Wake up in cozy cabin, and write several blog posts and reply to birthday emails and texts.

Step 4: Go shopping in Whidbey by yourself, finding some fun deals at some favorite stores. Yes, one of them was definitely a thrift store.

Step 5: Stop by a little restaurant I’ve had my eye on and get take out that only you would love– smokey lentil soup and butternut squash with roasted kale salad to eat back at the cabin.

Step 6: Take a short run down to the beach, then challenge your balance and bouldering skill by making it from the beach to Sandy Point beach with high tide covering most of the way, without swimming. Bring the Audible of the final book in the Rook & Rose trilogy.

Step 7: Have a curious seal make fun of you after you’ve clamored over a particularly large stump covered with dead brambles. Grin back. Fail to sneak up on the heron that’s keeping his suspicious eye on you.

Step 8: Curl up in a bedroom chair with lit candles and holiday tea.

Step 9: Greet Dwayne and meet friends at a local farm-to-table restaurant I’ve been wanting to try since it opened. Try not to think about the girls driving over together while we are out.

Step 10: Oh, dear. Find out that Wes could not figure out how to bake the ready-to-bake pizza I left for him with strict instructions to have dinner ready for Kyla when she arrived as she doesn’t handle hangry well. Get all sorts of texts during (a phenomenal) dinner about the hurt feeling and arguments. Ignore as many as possible but have a nearly perfect day tarnished by true childish idiocy. Sigh.

…which is why I took a picture of the newly cleaned-up backyard in autumn. A day later, it didn’t look like this.

Dwayne is making more of an effort to visit his parents in CA. We (ahem, the five of us Washingtonians) are a lot, though, so he just took Wes down this time. Grandma and Wes got to cook together, they all went out to Grandpa’s favorite restaurant for an early birthday celebration, and Wes got Papa-time, who is absolutely his favorite person in the world.

Piper loves doing this so much that we did two this year. Dwayne brought Wes down to CA to visit his parents for the weekend, so the girls and I decked out two cars (100% Piper’s effort though– did she spend more than 50 hours on the chest alone?) and during some of our clearest and coldest weather, handed out trunk-loads of candy. She and Kyla womanned the Dragon’s Lair and I got to tell kids to hold their breath and dive to the bottom of the ocean for their candy. Supposedly, about 1000 people showed up!

And we both know that I won’t plant them until spring. (Okay, summer.) Good luck, plants!

Three weeks later