First comes love, then comes....

Bow-tie Breakfast

This past week was one of those relatively surreal breaks stuck in the middle of normalcy. For starters, Thursday was Thanksgiving around these parts, which meant that the kids were off school from Wednesday to Friday. More than that, however, we got invited... to a wedding! On Wednesday morning, our friends Ben and Liz decided to tie the knot (in between packing for a Thanksgiving weekend away and picking up a turkey, that is), and invited us along for the adventure.  We were very honoured! We all met at a local greasy spoon for breakfast, and then headed over to town hall for a lovely (and efficient!) ceremony, followed by an impromptu dance party and photo shoot. As you can see, we dictated our own dress code - as the only guests, that was our prerogative, right? Linden is wearing his clearly-too-small tuxedo from Andrea and Dinesh's wedding a year and half ago, Juniper and I have fancy dresses (Juniper's has a "jewel" on the front, in case anyone missed it in the photo), and Clark has on dress pants, and jacket, and his not-ripped hat.  We were one classy bunch, and turned a few heads at breakfast, let me assure you.

Group shot post-ceremony

Reenacting the Banishment of the Brits painting, which seemed oh-so-appropriate at this particular American-British marriage 

The next day, we were invited next door for a delicious Thanksgiving feast - the first one we've had with friends since we got here.  That's the way Thanksgiving should be done, if you ask me!  Though I neglected to take photos of the dinner itself, I did snap pictures some of the art that Juniper has been making in and around Thanksgiving:

"I am thankful" (with corrected spellings for those who do not read 5-year-old English): my turkey, my family, my house, the sun, my mama, my dada 

Speaking of turkeys: A sampling of the turkey art that Juniper has been producing

Other than these two exciting events, the rest of this extended vacation was pretty low-key... a lot of time at the playground, and quite a bit of catching up on indoor projects as well:

The kids decorate (ie, apply underglaze) to the dishes that Deborah threw while she was here, and that I then trimmed. A truly collaborative project!

Juniper gives Linden an early-morning lesson on how to "properly" draw people

Juniper and Clark teach Linden how to play "go fish"

One last excitement of the week - our first real snowfall!  Well, sort of. It disappeared within the day.  But there was legitimate whiteness on the ground.

See?  Snow!

Though this week is hopefully back to normal in some respects, it is also truly the start of the December excitement... the solstice fairies have now made their official debut (leaving their first of daily surprises in the solstice calendar); the gift-making/scheming has begun; and the countdown is on to our next celebrity guest visitor - my sister Faye arrives in a couple of weeks. I'm hoping that in the midst of all this, I can squeak out another thesis chapter before the new year.  Wish me  luck!