Insanely busy.
That would be my two-word review of November. I guess December too could have the same review, but I'll force myself to focus and share our events in November.
My sweet Sabrina, one of the girls I work with at church, and I went out to help for the afternoon. Picture by my friend, Nicolas Carrasco.
Hurricane Cleanup:
In late October we were hit with Hurricane Sandy. By the time it hit the shores of Connecticut it was downgraded to a tropical storm. A tropical storm that had the force to take out whole sides of homes, flood entire first floors, and destroy foundations. It really was devastating to many people who had just recently finished cleaning up from Hurricane Irene, that hit the shores of Connecticut about a year previous.
Some of our friends had their entire first floor devoured by the flood, but had thought to move all their belongings they wanted to preserve upstairs. I laughed when she told me she had purposely left her old couches on the main floor, determined to use this as an opportunity to replace them. How could her husband deny her now with them molding from seawater?
We decided as a church group that we wanted to get out and serve our neighbors. We did this with no intention to proselyte our beliefs, but because we are suckers for that natural high we get from helping others, and we wanted to serve as Christ would. Nearly every weekend in November became dedicated to clean up relief in November, and Keith and I hardly saw each other as we took turns going out. It felt good to serve along with people, hear their stories, and be able to offer them some small form of relief. And then came the snow storm.
Let it Snow!:
November also brought with it a beautiful snow fall. It was absolutely perfect and lasted just a week before melting away. Sawyer enjoyed his first adventures sledding, snowman making, and we stomped, tromped, fell, and had a grand ol' time.
Thanksgiving Parades:
Last year Keith promised me that he would take me to the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade if I cooked a full Thanksgiving meal by myself while he worked outside. It was going to be great! Big balloons, excited crowds, clowns, train ride, and fun food! The weather was going to be perfect too, in the high 60s.
One thing you need to know about Keith is he is NOT a fan of big crowds. They make him nervous, grumpy, and overstimulated. So when I approached him a few days before and begged him to be in a good mood and to not complain during our adventure, I had little realization of the hard task I was requiring from my favorite man.
We had to get up at 4:45 to get to the train at a decent hour. We arrived at the train station just as our train pulled away. Sweet. When we finally arrived to NYC it was already insanely crowded, and we were further delayed when I had to wait a half hour with Lily to use the bathroom.
On the 6:30 train, excited about our upcoming adventure.
When we finally arrived near the main street, it was a stomach dropping moment. With 2 hours until the parade started, we found ourselves at the back of this crowd. They were agitated, tired, and couldn't see worth squat. See that itty traffic light on the right hand side? That's where the parade would pass by us. That lovely empty space in front of us would fill up with people crossing the street, that would stop to watch the parade each time something interesting passed, completely blocking our view.
After being sworn at, pushed, yelled at, and blocked many times, we were finally ready for the glorious parade to get underway. It wasn't great. I'll be honest. We were all miserable. We left about 45 minutes after the parade started and jumped on the train and headed home.
Keith? Didn't complain once, bless his heart. He carried both kids, he fought crowds to get food, he waited for us to use the bathroom twice, and he did it with a smile on his face. That made it so much better.
Following the parade we were lucky enough to eat with our friend Luzy and her family. She is like family to me here in Connect-i-cut and I'm so grateful that we weren't alone. Well, that and I'm grateful she cooked that blasted turkey.
The parade was such a bummer for all of us, that we had to do a small-town redo that weekend. It was exactly as I had wanted the big parade to be. Sawyer loved the "wee-yous" (anything with a siren) that passed by us, Lily was in love with the decorated horses, they both were thrown TONS of candy (I may or may not have snitched all the chocolate for me for later), and I got to play with my DSLR. Plus, we got this cute little photo with two happy kids and two genuinely happy adults:
