Due to our school calendar, we barely made it to Bethesda in time for Christmas. Fortunately, traveling on Christmas Eve is surprisingly pleasant — no crowds at the airport and plenty of room on the plane. This visit included Anthony and Andrew’s families plus Max. Dave, Nancy, and Raven spent the holiday in Utah. We missed them!
The Olson-Hammers outdid themselves once again with a magnificent holiday party featuring sweater-shaped cookies and a massive array of decorating materials. My sweater was intended to be creative, but I ended up accidentally crushing it in my hand just before the photo.
(Griffin’s photo is missing at the moment. We’ll remedy as soon as we track it down! )
Piece by a former student—now a junior—hanging in the art gallery at school. It gives me chills.
(The weird angle of my photo was to reduce glass reflections; sorry for the distraction.)
Pam and Jeff joined us for the feast. We grilled the turkey on the green egg. It came out well, but I may have been over-enthusiastic with the apple wood chips—the smoke flavor was intense.
Besides the turkey, the menu included mashed potatoes, stuffing, cranberry sauce, green beans, and Dick’s Buried Treasure. (The latter is a delicious Stocco tradition consisting of yams, canned pineapple, and dollops of cranberry sauce.) Dessert was Sarah’s pumpkin pie and Andrew’s cheesecake.
While we were prepping the meal, the kids asked what everyone’s favorite Thanksgiving food was and what we were thankful for this year. Then they created custom place cards for each of us.💖
Grilling notes for next time:
Our cafeteria crew went over the top today with a horror-themed lunch.
And, of course the eighth-grade team had a group costume for the assembly.
We drove down to Saint Louis to attend Clay and Meghan’s lovely wedding. Everyone found new fancy outfits for the occasion. Oliver’s was the talk of the town.
Sarah, Maggie, Griffin, and I went back to the fair on Tuesday evening for the Brandi Carlisle concert in the grandstand. It was Griffin and Maggie’s first big concert, and Brandi set the bar pretty high. It was a phenomenal show.
We love going to the fair. Even with the lines and crowds. I didn’t take many pictures, but I found this cute selfie of Sarah, Maggie, and me packed into one of the cable cars over the fairgrounds.
Well, it was Griffin’s first day, even if I had already been at school for a week of meetings and classroom prep. It’s hard to believe that Griffin is done with middle school!
