I Am Thankful, But the Neighbors Downstairs Are Not

Sigh.

I so wanted to write a happy, mushy post tonight about how delicious the food was and how thankful I am for various things... However, the gruffy bearded guy, smelling like smoke, who came to complain about the noise a few minutes ago just took away any joy I might have right now... He was the Grinch who stole the end of out Thanksgiving... ha ha, lame joke. :-(

In any case, I know now from experience why K doesn't like to come visit his parents with the extended family. And, frankly, I know it's crazy to pack that many adults (4 this time, but it's usually 6-8) and 4 boisterous boys into one small two bedroom apartment on the third floor. Sigh... Last year when the whole family (minus one SIL) got together in August we were the last ones to arrive -- and although at the time I complain, I have to say that K was right. Mother-in-law says that this guy complains everytime any of the grandkids come. We're lucky he didn't last October in the day and a half we spent here with our friends.

The unfortunate truth is, lots of people who live in rental places are not very nice or family friendly. Many of them can't stand children. So, yeah, I'm very thankful for home ownership. Particularly of a single family home (that's a pretty recent thing, only 2 years and a bit). And I'm trying not to be too upset of nervous about spending two more days here with the four little boys. It doesn't help that three more adults arrive tomorrow. Sigh. And I'm also aprehensive that K will be anxious the whole time he's here on account of this. We'll have to find a place to go on whenever we're not at the pools with the boys.

So... I'm sorry I had to write about that, it was not in the plans at all! In the end, our day was quite relaxing, actually! The boys went to the pool with SIL, then BIL (Kelvin went later because he needed to work on a Math assignment first, I took him and stayed for a bit) and my SIL and I cooked, with some help from MIL. We had:
- salad (mostly organic, from my CSA's last share)
- this vegetarian "roast"
- potatoes (chopped, seasoned and baked)
- rice
- manicotti -- two kinds, one with heart of palm filling and red sauce and another with spinach and ricotta cheese and white sauce.
- cranberry sauce*
- brussel sprouts*
- Yams (from CSA share) with pecan praline*

In the end we didn't make gravy ('cause we didn't buy a ready made powdered vegetarian option).

For desserts: I made an apple buy with store-bought crust, and two crust-less, pudding style squash pies (squash from CSA too!) -- a maple one and another one with condensed milk.

* Only my sister-in-law and I eat these. K does too, we're saving his portions for tomorrow.

In other news, K is on his flight back to Brazil right now, he's probably boarding and waiting for the plane to take off, actually, since it leaves at 2 am in Brazil (It's 3 hours later there). He was not too happy with how today's part of the interview went, but that's OK, I'm glad he's on his way back.

Another thing, although I can't spend anything, I'm going to the stores with my SIL and MIL -- first to the "Midnight Madness" at the outlet (I know, YUCK!) and then the 4 & 5 am opening stores. MIL is going back to Brazil and has a really long shopping list of items that she has to ship there and SIL has several small things that she needs to buy. I'm mostly going to buy things for my friend in Brazil.

So, yeah... I won't sleep tonight. See you, sleepily, tomorrow.