President's Day

Sometimes, things line up in just the right way.

This weekend being President's Day weekend was just a perfect example.

Last week, work was pretty rough. Not something I was unprepared for - but definitely not the type of week I'm in any hurry to repeat. Sometimes, I think life bad luck gets a wild hair and tears into you - and it's never when you're ready for it. 

...and it doesn't help when, in addition to a stressful week at work, you spend two mornings trying to get frost off of your windshield with a broken scraper because your good one was last seen 20 feet off of the ground in a random tree.

Thankfully, with the holiday this weekend though, I got three days to recuperate. 

Mom came down to visit Friday night, which was a blast. It's always fun when the grandparents come to visit. This time though, my step dad was going to Kansas to help his mom move out of her home - so it was just Grandma. 

One thing our family loves is tradition. Big traditions, small traditions - it doesn't matter. We just like the feeling of comfort or normalcy that tradition provides. 

After we moved into the new house, one tradition we started pretty early on was that Friday night=pizza and a movie night. 

There have been a few weeks that we've slacked off - or weeks that the kids have been with their dad - but for the most part, we've spent enough at Simple Simon's over the years to help them put their kids through college. 

This Friday was no different. Well, not really. 

While we normally rent a movie on Friday nights, this weekend we actually went to the theater. The kids had asked if we could go see Lego Batman while mom was here, so I begrudgingly agreed to go sit through two hours of Batman jokes and references. 

...Ok, I was more excited than they were.

I mean honestly, the first Lego movie was amazing. It really captured the essence of what it felt like to be a kid playing with Legos. The feeling that your imagination is the only limit of what you can experience. 

This movie was more of the same - but with Batman. There were so many jokes that referenced back to the old movies and tv show that half the time I was cracking up and Shelly and the kids had no idea a joke had been made. 

If you have kids (or don't mind being "that adult" at the theater) - I'd highly recommend it. 

Saturday, the three early birds in the house (Mom, Jaxon, and me) woke up and went for a walk with Ruthie, mom's dog. This visit was the first time she's brought her dog with her, so that added a new angle to the experience. 

When I lived alone in grad school I had two cats, Turk and JD. Around the same time, Shelly got both of her kids cats, Princess and Batman (who we later found out was a girl, though the name had already stuck). 

Having two cats is great. They keep each other company, they groom each other, and you only have to worry about keeping food/water out and scooping the box once a day. 

...then we got married and moved in together. We became a four-cat family. God help us. 

Since we moved in, we did lose one of our cats, but still - three cats can be quite a handful. We've flirted with the idea of getting a dog before, but never really knew how the cats would react. Mom's dog, Ruthie, was somewhat of a trial run. We knew that she's old/calm enough that she wouldn't be any problem for the cats, and it would let us see how they responded to the presence of a dog without any danger. 

Let's just say Turk showed his true colors. He disappeared. The two younger, female cats were cautiously intrigued.

Emphasis on 'cautiously'. 

Now that the dog is gone though, you can almost hear his little cat thoughts: 

"Shoot, if that dog was still here, I'd show her she chose the wrong house. She's lucky she's not here anymore..." 

Sunday was spent on videogames, chores, and what I thought was going to be watching the new Planet Earth special with the family. When we found out that for some reason it didn't record - we changed plans and went back to our usual routine. Jaxon started a new show on Netflix called Trollhunters, which seems to be pretty decent - and Jade played with her new toy (a "Hatchimal" - whatever that is...). 

I swear, life is absolutely more fun when your kids have this much personality. Jaxon has become such a fun kid to play video games with. He joins in with me and the guys that I play with - and because of this, he's learning how to joke around and trash talk in a way that we're learning more every day how quick-witted he can be.  

Jaxon spent his Valentine's money on a new game for his friend so that they could play together. 

...Jade opted to spend hers on a sloth.

Monday was meal-prep for the rest of the week and more games with Jaxon, while Jade spent the day at her best friend Gracie's house. 

Poor Shelly spent her day at work. 

So, tomorrow we're back to it. Work will resume, and a few loose ends from last week will need to be tied up. I'm thankful I had this weekend there so I could take a breath.