The Holders were away on a travel vacation over Christmas proper, but flew back in to Chicago yesterday. And so we made plans to hang out, and to have a late birthday dinner/celebration for Kirt.
After showing folks around our house (and our newly updated floors)… we decided on something for our afternoon: mini-golf.
Late morning, several of us took Grace to the airport for her flight back to college. On our way home, we stopped off at the Grand Rapids Christkindl Markt.
Turkey-vision.
Normally, Liz and I tend to leave in the late morning to trek home to Chicago. But today, we decided to stay a little longer – not rush right out the door, and just hang out a bit more.
A pretty lazy day, today. We milled about the house, and mostly took the morning and early afternoon very, very slowly.
Anne, taking a photo of Jackson with some Lafayette College swag. Which, apparently, is all the rage and the thing to do in terms of social media posts.
For dinner, we met up at Tirami Sú. A lot of great food, and some great conversations. My only regret was that we were on the other end of the table, and didn’t have much time to chat with Jackson, his girlfriend Angel, and Grace all that much.
I have to say – the kitchen was a scene of utter chaos. And I absolutely loved it. People moving around, jostling, yelling for space and help. A bustle of activity and collisions and it was just so glorious to witness.
You may gauge the holidays on the meals that are served. But for me, the pleasure and measure of it is in the preparation. A house is full of love when its kitchen is full with motion.
While surfing Facebook, I happened across this post by Anne – and did a doubletake. It was her talking about how much she enjoyed a recent play she had just attended, a production of The Chinese Lady, by Lloyd Suh, at Tipping Point Theatre.
When I saw this – a question entered my brain of “Wait, Lloyd?” And after a split second, I had a follow-up thought of “Of course, it’s Lloyd.”
Back at the house, Sandy’s cozied up in the living room.
Group photo, with a lot of lovely lights in the background.
I’m in awe, and I haven’t even step foot inside any building yet.
Kirt, with the turkey out of the oven. Here, he’s removing a layer of salt that was placed on the turkey, which formed a kind of outer coating/shield during the cooking process.
And then! After we got back, we got to sitting on the couch and just talking. We ended up visiting and catching up, and time somehow got away from us. At some point, Grace went to bed and Jackson came downstairs… and we all just kept on talking and talking. Telling stories, sharing stories.
I think that by the time we decided to call it a night it was close to 3:30 AM! Seriously!
Slow day today. We got up a bit early, and several of us headed out to Musekgon to visit the Muskegon Farmers Market.