“We’re engaged, did you guys all know about this?”
Jose and his crew were coming to replace the kitchen floor last Monday, so we decided to exchange our Christmas stockings on Sunday night. I love these three little penguins nesting in my stocking.
There were a couple of gifts that I couldn’t resist for Diana, but which didn’t fit in her extra large stocking. She had mentioned enjoying spirograph a few months ago, and I was trying to describe the fancy set I had. She’s pretty excited to try out this classic set when we get back to McKinney. I’m not sure if that will be before or after she tackles the “Where the Crawdads Sing” jigsaw puzzle.
I saw the “Champagne Clutch” from Neiman Marcus and knew that McD needed one of those also. Enough room for a bottle of champagne, a credit card and an ID.
My favourite gift is this Pooh cushion. The other side has the “We’ll be friends for ever, right Pooh? Even longer,” classic quote.
We think we may stick with the stocking stuffer only Christmas gift tradition.
Spending the night at the Grand Hotel in downtown McKinney seemed like a better plan than getting in the way of Jose and the flooring crew. The Grand is such a lovely, old school hotel with a great location on the square. We had dinner at the Urban Bar and Grill – a new restaurant where Bayou Jack’s used to be (I loved that New Orleans style place.) Our meals were great – particularly Diana’s mussels.
We took advantage of some of the photo opportunities on our walk back from dinner. Diana always says we rarely get pictures of the two of us at busy times like this – so here you go D:
I saw storms and flight disruptions forecast for San Francisco on Wednesday, and so changed our flights to Tuesday. That way I could be sure to be ready to go to celebrate Will and Christine’s engagement. You hadn’t heard about that? Oh my goodness, what a production.
But before that, we celebrated McD’s birthday again with Adamo, Amy and crew. A creative cake indeed. It wouldn’t be a complete visit if Diana didn’t have kids hanging off her.
Now back to the engagement event – eleven of us were staged in a limo bus just down the street from the site of the proposal – in a “taxi” outside Christine’s house, where they first met. We were provided with a detailed set of instructions, including a dress code. As we exited the bus to offer congratulations, Christine said, “Did you guys all know about this? Oh, of course you did.” Pictures were taken in front of the old apartment, and then we all rode in the bus to the restaurant where Will and Christine were going to have a special celebration dinner.
It turned out the place Will had chosen for dinner was right next to the Tadich Grill, a favourite of mine when I would occasionally work in downtown San Francisco. This is the oldest restaurant in California, dating back to 1849. We decided to have dinner there rather than riding back in the bus and catching an Uber from the drop off point. This was a great decision – wonderful oysters Rockefeller, petrale sole and cioppino.
After dinner Diana wanted to check on the newly engaged couple. She asked the maitre d’ to take us to the couple with the white jackets.
We had our gift exchange with Will, Christine, Campbell and Ollie in Redwood City on Thursday night. That was followed by a delicious meal (outside so that Ollie could attend) at Terun.
The visit gave the girls a chance to admire Christine’s rock again.
I think I was a pretty good helper for Diana as we assembled Christmas dinner from the remainder of the seven fishes dinner from the previous evening. Marco and Giancarlo’s families joined us and we had a very nice time.
We certainly got plenty of celebrating and time with family in this week.
I did find enough time to finish up “I Dream He Talks to Me” by Allison Moorer. This is about her experiences raising a non-verbal autistic son, John Henry. The book certainly brings perspective to the challenges of raising our kids.
“I suspect he hears music all around him because he stops what he’s doing and he listens. My son has taught me countless lessons, but the biggest one may be that there is music in everything. I don’t know what role it will ultimately play in his life, whether he will pursue it professionally or if he will just enjoy it. I only know that music might very well be his language in some way. What he cannot say, he might one day sing too.”
A beautifully written book about treasuring all the small moments in life.
I love this song by The Delines, a band from Portland who describe themselves as retro-country:
And here’s one from the Scottish band The Blue Nile. Their music is always so well produced:
Stay safe (it’s getting crazy out there again) and kind.