The Longest Day

This date on the calendar has by far had the most things written on it all year. It began with Waconia's quaint small town Christmas celebration with candy cane hunt in the park, pictures with Santa at the fire house, and an old fashioned Christmas carol sing along as the town Christmas tree is lit upon Santa's arrival in the evening. It is one of the cutest things this great town does, and in the 6 winter seasons we have been here, we have only been able to make it to one......that was two years ago when it was about -30 windchill. But this year, it was the first thing on my calendar for this date one month ago. During that one month's time, it slowly became buried under mountains of other activities. Sadly, we would miss this celebration again.

Instead, I got to enjoy waking up at 7am to get Crispy to hockey pictures and practice. We were in such a hurried rush, that we forgot his stick.....again. I am loving that our new arena is just 4 minutes from our house, but not so loving how many times a week I find myself driving there and back. Pictures were running behind, so I was able to make it back with his stick before his turn. That was good....it is funny how kids get attached to THEIR things....the thought of borrowing someone else's stick for the picture just put tears in his eyes.

Crispy's pictures running late caused them to be late in starting practice. This caused me to be 25 minutes late with Melissa to work our shift at the Girl Scout Holiday Boutique. We were triple booked for that shift, so I was not too concerned about coverage, but our troop leader did not seem so pleased. Being that I am pretty much a one man band running my house of 7 children and all their activities, it is a miracle most days that we get anywhere at all. The boutique is an annual event where the girls make items for sale for under $3. Melissa wanted to make Happy Hockey Pucks again, so that is what we spent her yesterday off of school doing.....plus baking peppermint frosted brownies for the bake sale also going on in the next room. This year, Melissa wanted to add some pink pucks with some debazzlement. They turned out pretty cute, and we sold at least a few. Melissa enjoyed walking around to the other tables after our shift was over, and doing a little bit of "holiday shopping" herself.

We had about 20 minutes back at home before getting everyone ready for a drive into the cities. We picked up some lunch on the way....I am getting tired of fast food. I remember the summer days when I had time to cook! We picked up Grandma C and left Tubby with Grandpa for the first time. The rest of us were going to the Minnesota Orchestra for a special family production of the Swinging Nutcracker. It was a fantastic way to orient young children to the orchestra. The concert was just right in length, about 50 minutes, there were dancers and acrobatics to watch here and there, and the music was entertaining and delightful. The comparison and contrast between the original Nutcracker pieces and the jazzy swing style was fun and light. A great way to spend an afternoon. Even so, Melissa had a hard time keeping focused for so long (as she does in movie theaters also), and Laura fell asleep on Grandma's lap within the first 5 minutes. I am glad I won the tickets in an online lottery.....it would have been sad to have spent the money when only half of us were actually paying attention!

Grandpa did just fine with Tubby, and Tubby loved all the attention. He got a one on one audience to play cars with and talk to. What more could a little boy ask for?

We had to leave shortly after the performance and drive back to Waconia to drop off some kids and pick up a whole new set of kids. We had another 20 minute layover at home....just long enough to eat a cold milk and cereal dinner. Yum. Scoring big on meals today, I see. Then it was another hour long drive back into the cities for Michael's hockey game in Bloomington. Once again, we watched as our boys were slaughtered across the ice. This season has been rough, to the point that we have been seriously worried about the safety of those boys. Leave it to a few hotheads and lots of politics in our hockey association who insisted that we play in an upper level league that we are clearly not up to par with. Our boys have lost every game by an average of 9 points to zero. And have been roughed up too...it really has been amazing that no one has been hospitalized...yet.

Long drive back home, then at last into the driveway at 10:22pm. Pulling around behind us was a very long stretch limo. They had come to see what was suppose to be the first night of the spectacular Christmas Light show. Bob had been working on it all day as I was running around, but had run into some technical difficulties resulting in still no show. At least he had all of the lights on, and our yard looked really pretty, but I wanted to hide from the people behind the tinted glass who had no doubt expected something much bigger. Oh well, what can we do.

It sure has been a long day.....come to think of it, they all are pretty much like this one.