Recap of our Family Day Celebration

Henry and I played hooky Tuesday afternoon. I picked him up at lunch time and asked him where he wanted to eat. What do you think he picked? McDonald's? Chuck E. Cheese's? Chik-Fil-A? Nope! The boy picked Sweet Tomatoes. Now that was a choice that I didn't mind at all.

Our intention was to go bowling (again, the choice that Henry made since there were no kid movies playing at the theater). We arrived at the bowling alley to find that they had upgraded their software and couldn't figure out how to get the lanes to work. We waited around for 15-20 minutes to see if they could get it working, but no go.

So we headed off to the next bowling alley we thought of. We arrived there to find that they were only open on the weekends. By this time, the only other bowling alley that I knew of was a good 20 minutes drive away.

Instead, we headed home and decided to watch a movie from Henry's vast DVD collection. He chose "Sound of Music" and we crawled into my bed and enjoyed a lazy afternoon.

All day, he begged me to tell him different stories about 'when he was a baby'. We talked about my two trips to Russia to visit him, the trip home from Russia, our ride home from the airport, our first week of dealing with jetlag, our trip a month later to Chicago to meet the rest of the family, and his subsequent stay at the hospital while there. Even so, he kept begging for more. It was fun reminiscing about those days.

Last night, we celebrated with our annual dinner at The Melting Pot. It was fun to see Henry get so into his "Family Day" celebration this year. It was fun that our celebration included Papa this year. And of course, Leslie and Nada were there as well. Our favorite courses remain the cheese and the chocolate.

As I mentioned earlier, Henry and Leslie had been conspiring to get me a gift this year. Henry tried really hard to keep it a secret. Here are things he did tell me:

Mama, it is your favorite color. But, I'm not going to tell you what animal it is because I want that to be a surprise. And I'm not going to tell you about building it.

Hmmm, I wonder what that could be? To give him credit, he didn't tell me. And he insisted that Leslie wrap the house/box so that I wouldn't peek in the window and see it. Here is what Henry got for me:

It is a white bear with blue (my favorite color) accents. He added on the accessories of a box of chocolates and a flower, and a heart that says "I Love You!". He also insisted that it needed to have shoes. He named it Sugar. His reasoning for picking a "build-a-bear" to get for me was that when he visited me in my bed in the mornings, there were no stuffed animals. So now, with Sugar there, he won't need to bring any from his own room. Makes perfect sense to me and is really just the sweetest thing ever.

Henry enjoyed the gifts he got, and especially liked that Papa brought more gifts. Here he is opening the gifts from Nana and Auntie Margot:

And here are a few more pictures. One of the group minus Nada (she was taking the picture), and one of me and my boy:

Henry had grand plans of reading some of the Berenstein Bears books he got from Aunt Nada, and trying on the new Nascar costume from Auntie Margot when he got home. However, he totally crashed and was sound asleep when we arrived home.

In the end, a great time was had by all. And thus, another grand year of being a family comes to a close and another spectacular year lies ahead of us. I can't wait to see what this year brings to us.