Visit From Dad

Most of our family lives in Michigan. Usually Todd's mom will come down once or twice a year, sometimes with his dad too. But it's been a couple of years since my dad has been down to visit.

He drove down the middle of last month after Emily got out of school. Emily was very excited to see her Pop-Pop, especially since he brought her a bunch of fun rocks. Emily has been into rocks a lot lately.

The first full day he was here happened to be my day off so the three of us went off to find rocks. We started off in West Asheville at the Asheville-Biltmore Gem Mine. Emily had a great time mining through a bucket of dirt and rocks to find treasures. She was especially excited that she got fool's gold! My dad was able to identity most of what was in her bucket and she got a whole bunch of rocks to take home with us.

From there, we went to downtown Hendersonville. Our first stop was the Mineral Museum. The museum was small but it was also free. There was a lot of rocks and even an exhibit on glowing rocks

The coolest thing was Emily getting to crack a geode to take home. They made a big deal about it and called everyone around in the museum to watch. But Emily was the one to help pull the lever down to get it cracked and of course, since my dad paid for it she got to keep it.

From there, we walked down the street to the Team ECCO Aquarium. It was a very cool little aquarium with lots of different kinds of fish and sea life. There was even turtles you could touch but Emily wanted no part of that. I touched them though, they were very cute!

We called it a day after that because we were all pooped. It was a lot of walking especially in downtown Hendersonville.

plus a dinosaur head!

The next day, we just hung around the house mostly. I ended up in bed with a bad migraine. We all went out to dinner but I ended up getting even more sick when we got home so I pretty much was out of it.

My dad's brother lives in GA so we had thought about all going down there for a day trip. But in the end, it was my dad and Emily who went for the whole day. I was still feeling sick so I slept a lot but Todd and I did get a chance to go to the movies. It was nice to just spend the day with my husband. That happens only a couple of times a year.

Dad and Emily got back late that night and my dad was starting to suffer from a pretty bad cold. He had planned on leaving on Monday and drive straight through but because he wasn't feeling good he decided to leave on Sunday, which was Father's Day. It was nice to spend a little time with my dad because I have't seen him on Father's Day in many year.

All in all, it was a pretty good visit. I wish I hadn't been so sick but it is what it is. Emily got to spend quality time with her Pop-Pop, which was mostly the point of the visit!

Thankgivings As A Child

With the holidays fast approaching, I’ve been thinking back to the holidays I had as a child. I grew up in Holland, MI and most of our family was on the other side of the state in Bay City. While most of my friends would travel to family on Thanksgiving, we would stay at home.

Nearly every year, we would do the same thing. We’d get up and watch the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade. Usually I was the only one who watched it from beginning to end. My mom, with some help from my dad, would start working on our Thanksgiving feast while the parade was going on.

After Santa made his big entrance, we would turn the channel to football. Lunch was always cheese, crackers and summer sausage. It was enough to keep us from being hungry but not enough to make us too full before dinner.

Usually during the game, my sister and I would get out our room Christmas things and decorate. Though when I was in high school, I started following football so I would watch the game with my parents.

After the game, we’d have our turkey dinner with all the trimmings. We use my mom’s china and drink sparkling cider from wine glasses. We would have apple and pumpkin pie for dessert.

Our Thanksgiving continue on Black Friday. We never went shopping, except at this local craft type store that always had a 50% off coupon. What we did instead of shopping was we would go to cut our Christmas tree.

We had a Christmas Tree farm we went to every year. They would give us a saw and a sled, and we’d all tromp out into the farm to find the perfect tree. Some years it would be really cold and snowy, but there was always hot chocolate at the barn while our tree was measured and wrapped up.

We would spend the rest of the day decorating the house. My mom really loved Christmas so we had a lot of Christmas stuff. The whole house would be decked by the evening and we would always sit down to watch a Christmas movie – usually It’s A Wonderful Life.

This tradition continued pretty much until my mom passed away. She was really sick her last Christmas, but still came out to the Christmas Tree farm with us. My dad, sister and I tried to keep it going after she passed but it wasn’t the same.

Now I have a family of my own and we do our thing for Thanksgiving. But I still have fond memories of my childhood traditions.