The Calendar Confused, Jet Lagged, Whiplashed Blog Experience

Okay.  Just so you all don’t get a bad case of Calendar Confused, Jet Lagged Whiplash, let me just mention that I am rewinding time just a bit (a nice little trick, if I do say so myself) so that my upcoming blog posts have some semblance of order in the space-time continuum.  (Naturally, I have no idea what a space-time continuum is, but it’s another one of those things I’ve always wanted to use in a post.)

However.  There is some small possibility that you may become even more slightly kind of confused by the fact that that I’m rewinding time to such an extent that I’m actually rewinding it back to a point before a point I have already written about. 

But really, the only reason I’m even rewinding things that far back (besides finally getting the chance to type space-time continuum) is that there were a few little pictures from our Airport Pick Up last week that I wanted to include but didn’t.  And so before I fast forward to the rest of the rewound week, I wanted to rewind far back enough revisit those rewound and unvisited photos.

Got that?

Good.  Then let’s get started.

Since the Norfolk airport wasn’t very busy when we arrived to pick up our very own personal Royal Couple, Steve and Sarah had plenty of space to walk forwards as well as backwards on the moving sidewalks, just to see what would happen.  My family is easily entertained.

When we had finished our moving sidewalk entertainment extravaganza, we moved on to the gate area to await the Big Moment.  Of course, when you’re at an airport greeting your son and new daughter-in-law for the first time since their wedding, you can’t possibly just stand there and smile quietly and demurely when they appear in view.  No, you have to clap, scream, and cheer wildly.

Do you see the lady on the right who is turning around to stare?  It’s only because we were being just a wee bit loud.  (Yes, even my demure little self was being loudish.  Right in public.  It was historic, I tell you. Historic.)

A few minutes later, there was cause for even more staring as Steve tried to walk up the down escalator.

Well, actually, what he was trying to do was just stay in one place without moving up or down.  The little girl to the right was obviously entrance with his efforts.

After getting home from the wild shenanigan-ish airport experience, we allowed the newlyweds a whopping 1.2 minutes of rest before we launched into the making of our pancake/bacon/scrambled eggs dinner which we whip up each year on the night we decorate the tree.

Meagan was also inducted into the Smith Family Christmas Antlers Club. I know she thought she became a Smith on July 23, 2011,  but it actually didn’t become official until until she donned yon antlers.

Getting the ornaments on the tree was rather entertaining since Nathan was behaving in his best Golden Retriever Puppy Dog Fashion.

Then our (three) children instructed Steve and me to stand in front of the decorated tree and look entranced.

This is about as entranced as I get.

It was so much fun having Nathan and Sarah together again …

…along with our newest Smith.

Hard to believe that I’m no longer sitting beside a College Dude but a real married fella!

A married fella whose shorts-clad legs made a nice frame for the decorated tree.

This year, Steve went out and bought a third stocking for Meagan.    I told him not to buy a nice one because it had to go with the ones we’ve had for Nathan and Sarah all these years.  Meagan asked how long the Smith Kids would have stockings hung up for them and I told her that it would be a long, long time—probably until each of the Smiths Kids is at least 75.   (Which would make Steve into into a rather ancient Stocking Filler but it’s a job he loves so we have decided not to fire him.)

Since we opted to wait for Nathan and Meagan’s arrival in order to do many of our Christmas traditions, we had to sort of smoosh the activities pretty closely together; therefore, the pancake/tree decorating night was followed immediately by the gift opening night. 

Since Snowy considers himself to the Big Dog around here, his self-assigned task was to sit in the Man Chair with Steve and assist him with the reading of the Christmas Story.  (He even donned his little Christmas sweater for the occasion which, unfortunately, detracted a bit from his Big Bad Dog Persona. But don’t tell him I said that.) 

Also, unfortunately, Big Bad Dog Snowy was struck with a gargantuan doggie yawn just as the story was beginning, so it turned out that his inspiring presence in our midst wasn’t all that wasn’t that inspiring after all. Entertaining, yes.  Inspiring, no.

The Smith Kids listened quietly to the story, a story they’ve heard every Christmas and many times in between--a story that still brings them to a place of peace.

And then we opened gifts.   And talked a little.  And laughed a lot.

We also (big surprise, I know) took a lot of pictures.

Here’s one I caught of the new sisters whom I have hereby dubbed, Smithsters.  (Cute, I know.)

 

And then for the finale, my pastor’s kid children told me that it would be funny if I took a cookie and pretended like I was smokin’  a stogie.  Can you tell I’m a bit out practice in the stogey-smokin’ department?

Oh well.  It made them laugh.

Alrighty then!  That’s it for today’s edition of the Calendar Confusion Jet Lagged Whiplashed Blog Experience.

And in future posts?

The story behind this picture.  And much more!