birthdays, holidays & weddings

Today is a rainy wintery day. We are beyond autumn and into crisp cold winter mornings that hold promise of Christmas. I might pull out my box of Christmas this afternoon and unpack ornaments and odds-and-ends. Recently, my mother handed our ornaments over to us - the children - and so, my assortment of ornaments includes a fragile glass ball inscribed with my initials (my old initials before the D turned to A) and a few construction paper concoctions covered in sticky lace and my own five-year-old handwriting. This will be our first Christmas as the Adlards, and we are already making big plans. As the Adlards tend to do. A Christmas tree is first on our to-do list - and we are just hopeful that Daisy the Dog won't eat it. She has a taste for trees. So we'll keep an eye on her.

Last Saturday was Ben's 26th birthday, and we had a lovely time celebrating. A good excuse for drinks with friends on Friday and a full day of birthday events on Saturday - including a hike in the woods, coffee in hand and dog running free - and the new Harry Potter flick in the afternoon - and dinner out. Happy conclusion: brunch on Sunday with my parents at Crooks Corner. Shrimp and grits...have never tasted so good.

Last week was a quick three days of work and then the Thanksgiving holiday, which is Ben's favorite American holiday - I think mostly, because the day requires lots of turkey and mashed potatoes and apple pie to be eaten - and an afternoon nap is encouraged. We spent Thanksgiving at my parents' house with Mom, Dad, and Tim - it was a small dinner table - only the five of us, but it was a good restful day. My Mom only knows how to cook Thanksgiving dinner for a minimum of 12 people - so we ate as much as we could, and looks like Dad will be eating turkey sandwiches for at least a week.

Our friend Dawn was married in Washington D.C. this weekend, so we left early on Friday morning for the city. It was a sweet weekend, because it makes us happy to see Dawn happy. And she is very happy...to have met Matt. And we will always love the city. They were married in a beautiful old church on New Hampshire and V Street, right in the core of the city - one of the very best parts of D.C. And after the ceremony, the entire church walked across a city park together to a warm old house with fires in the fireplace and floor to ceiling windows and a sweeping staircase. For a glass of wine and a few toasts to send off Dawn and Matt. It was a beautiful afternoon and a beautiful occassion. We mingled through the pretty old rooms, saw old friends. And were struck by the fact that we are all Growing Up.