Christmas was great. Our (almost) month long stay in the Bay Area was great.

Forest is a great little guy. He handled being away from home, staying in a hotel, staying at his grandparents, and lots of visits with friends, like a little man. He got to spend a lot of time with Nona and Grandpa's dogs....which he always considers to be a good time! And even ended up attempting to take a rest in the dog crate on Christmas. A true animal lover. He also enjoyed the large Koi fish in the indoor pond at the hotel. He enjoyed them so much, that one day he decided they needed to borrow his Crocs...so he pulled them off his feet and threw them in to the fish!

I got to enjoy spending time with some friends and family members that i dont get to see very often. I also got to "enjoy" the craziness of Bay Area Christmas shopping...and with that came getting massively schooled on how to do the proper Alamo Starbucks line up. To each their own, i suppose! Needless to say, i am very glad to be back home and going to "my" Starbucks where i know how the flow of the line works! haha.

We are very glad to be home and catching up on some rest. I didnt realize how tired i was getting, being away with an 18 month old, until we finally got home!

Blessed

Like i mentioned in my last post, Forest has visiting with lots of people lately.

He had the privilege of spending an entire day with his "Uncle Paul".
Forest's "Uncle Paul" is a truly creative, intelligent, charismatic, and inspirational person.
I have never known anyone else in my life who is filled with more creativity and charisma than this man.
I consider it completely beautiful every time Forest gets to spend time with him.

The more time i spend here in the Bay Area on "vacation", the more i realize how blessed i am to have certain people in my life that my son is able to have a relationship with. The fact that he has so many people who love him, contributes so much to his life and his being so well rounded.
He is so fortunate, and i remind him constantly.

what a tiny man

The Little Man has been living it up during our time of "hotel living".

He has gotten to visit with many people lately, and i was able to capture a truly precious moment the other day. A coffee and cookies date with his Great Grandparents. The picture of all three of them, might need to be framed in my house. What a blessing that Forest has the opportunity to have a relationship with his great grandparents. I have told him before, that this is rare and special. He soaks it up every time they are with him.

This song speaks loudly. I dont like to push cheese onto my blog...but this song is loud.
Deeply touched this morning by the words.

Collecting leaves for Thanksgiving dinner table decor



Found some great leaves!

It was freezing!

Our friends came with us for this bundled up freezing walk

Robert was beyond excited about the outcome of his
"free range, fresh, Trader Joe's turkey"

We had a very nice Thanksgiving, yet somehow, we failed to take pictures.
Robert, Forest, and I, started the day out with watching the Thanksgiving parade on the couch with our coffee in the morning.
Extended family. Hot cider. A lot of Cooking. Eating too much wonderful food.
And lots of enjoying eachother's company!

A week before Thanksgiving, Forest and I set out (in a bad mood) to find two matching table cloths for our table plus the added fold up table we would be adding to it.
Finding two matching table cloths had become my Thanksgiving goal. And finding them for a cheap price was my even bigger goal. It wasnt happening.
Anyways, we set out (like i said) for our last attempt. It was freezing and about to pour rain.
On my way from the car to the store, I noticed a family sitting on the curb asking for money.
I thought to myself, "they sure do know how to work the oldest scheme in the book. Using their kids on a freezing cold day". But as I went inside the store, I looked at Forest and knew what we had to do. Went outside, asked them if they would like to join us for lunch, and they said yes.
So Forest, a woman, one of her sons, and I, walked to get lunch together. She hesitated to bring her other two boys, since they were younger and would probably get more money for the family by staying. Im not a fool. I know ALL the tricks. ALL the stories. ALL the reasons. I also,out of respect, dont ever mess with their "system". If their system was using the little kids for gaining pity, then i wasnt going to stand in the way of stopping their money flow. So, even though i knew her little boys were freezing, I let her make the choice of leaving the two youngest with their dad. (dont worry, we brought back food for them)
When we said goodbye after lunch, I prayed to God that they wouldnt stay out much longer.
And i prayed that i wouldnt stay focused on the fake stories i heard, or how sick with addiction they were.I needed to purely stay focused on the fact that, regardless of why they need money or how they have gotten to this point, i need to offer love and help. And i want Forest to see and know that this is not something unusual to do. And that its definitely not something to be doing
just once a year during the holidays.

With that said, Forest and I lost on our table cloth goal. We no longer had money for a stupid table cloth after the lunch outing. I did however, still manage to create a lovely dinner table for Thanksgiving. And had we bought the table cloth, we would have missed out on sharing a little bit of life with the people that we met.

Screw the tablecloth.

Busy Little Man

Quite proud of himself

Set this all up himself for a "jam session"

Ready to cook the Turkey

Typical Forest face

"AH! You caught me!"

Lawn mower needed repairs

Mowing the apartment

Hardly ever a boring moment at our place!
Forest got this awesome lawn mower from his Nona...or actually, he stole it from her house.
He prefers to use it at Nona's house, since its much larger than our apartment and allows him endless amounts of mowing time.
But for now, he has mastered maneuvering around the apartment...until he can bring it back to Nona's and push it with complete freedom and endless space!

Toilet fail

It is said that joy comes in the morning....well all i got this morning was a bunch of shit.

Literally, shit.

My cranky child went back to bed after breakfast, leaving me extremely excited for some alone time. Get myself ready for church without a tiny guy following me around. And maybe even sneak in a little bit of a re-run of one of my guilty pleasure shows (remains nameless).

WRONG! Instead, my toilet decided to come alive and overflow EVERYWHERE.
While applying my makeup i noticed my toilet would not stop running. And just as I decided to wise up and pick up the area rug (just in case), it began to overflow non stop.
Needless to say, my bathroom was flooding. I was trying not to scream since Forest was asleep, and amongst cussing, almost crying, and laughing, I shut the door to the flooding and poo filled bathroom and tucked a towel underneath...it was seeping into the hallway carpet!

Of course this had to happen the morning that Robert goes back to work for the week.

Thankfully, there is a plus side to this. Since i live in an apartment, i have 24 hour maintenance help. So after a frantic phone call, within 20 min(which seemed like a life time), help was here!
(always need to add in my pro-apartment living plug whenever possible).

Apparently all is well with the toilet now. The flood is soaked up. The shit is no longer floating by. The bathroom is deep cleaned. I decided to still go to church. I got a huge soy latte on the way home. My child is now in the living room unloading my purse. And peace is back again.

And yes, you are correct...I cussed and went to church all in the same day. Wow, imagine that!