Tomorrow We Will Trim The Tree

Josh and I had a very busy day.

We rose very early and bundled up and took the dog to the park and ran with him and played games with him that he loves.

Then we returned to my parents' house, and we cleaned up and we prepared breakfast for my Dad and for ourselves.

A short while later we prepared breakfast for my Mom, and then Josh and I left the house and we did my mother's food shopping for her, leaving my Mom and Dad home to read the newspapers. Josh and I love to do food shopping, probably because both of us love to eat.

After we picked up everything my mother needed--at three different food stores!--we returned home and put the food away.

Then all of us went out together to get the Christmas tree. My mother picked it out.

We returned home with the tree, and erected it. Then Josh and I wrapped and packaged his family's Christmas presents, and we took the package to the post office and mailed the package to Oklahoma.

We returned home again, and we picked up my parents and we took them Christmas shopping. My mother had already done much of the Christmas shopping last week, while my father was at work, but there were a few gifts still to select, and Josh and my father and I helped her. We ate lunch out--a very, very late lunch--and then we returned home.

The first thing we did was to wrap all of the Christmas presents, to get that out of the way. Then we stored the Christmas presents, and Josh and I did laundry for my mother while she prepared dinner for everyone. She prepared a beautiful prime rib.

During dinner, we discussed our plans for next weekend, the final weekend before my brothers return home for Christmas. Josh and I made my mother promise that she would allow Josh and me to clean the entire house next weekend while she did the Christmas baking. My parents have a very large house, and my mother maintains very high housekeeping standards, and we told her that we were not going to allow her to devote her energies and worries to housecleaning for the next two weeks. The house is perfectly clean, in any case, but every holiday my mother always wants to clean EVERYTHING anew, and we told her that we would see to it that EVERYTHING was cleaned anew next weekend and that we would see to it that EVERYTHING sparkled to the highest degree.

We talked to Josh's Mom and Dad tonight, and Josh and I suggested to his parents that he and I fly down to Oklahoma for a short visit either over the January three-day holiday weekend or over the February three-day holiday weekend. Josh and I have not seen his parents since June, when we both drove, in separate cars, from Washington, D.C., to Oklahoma. We made that trip in order to leave Josh's car in Oklahoma so that his younger brother could from that point forward use it as HIS car. We only stayed in Oklahoma for two nights, and from there we drove to Minnesota in my car.

Josh's father had a different proposal: he suggested that we travel to Oklahoma for the second weekend in March, when the Big Twelve Conference will hold its Mens' Basketball Tournament in Oklahoma City. He said that he would be able to get four tickets, in prime seating, for all four days of tournament sessions--for himself and for Josh and for Josh's younger brother and for me--and that we should come to Oklahoma for the tournament and spend six days there, Wednesday through Monday. Well, that was an offer we couldn't refuse! We accepted!

Afterward we cleaned up the kitchen for my mother, during which we talked to my parents and made further holiday plans. When everything was finished for the night, Josh and I walked the dog and then everyone prepared to turn in.

Tomorrow we will trim the tree.