This past weekend was one of abundant quality time with wonderful people...for all of us.
Tim and I are hard-pressed to find ourselves at ONE social event in the space of six months. Friday and Saturday provided three.
Friday evening Tim and I had the opportunity to attend two different parties.
The first was the annual office holiday party at the Battelle building in Aberdeen. It was very nice and very well planned, with a caterer and a huge tree and live string quartet. Sounds rather posh, but everyone was having a really nice time visiting and it was all very comfy and relaxed. I even got my first tour of the building. Not that Tim would have denied me a tour, but they are pretty tight on the security, and it is a bit of trouble.
A very nice gentleman, who is apparently the manager of Tim's group, offered to take me around the building. He was very thorough and descriptive. It was nice to get a visual of the place where Tim spends so much of his time. Tim has a great office space, which he shares with "Sim" his simulator buddy and a whole bunch of gadgets that he is working on. Upstairs there is a huge "cube farm" and there are quite a few labs and such for the research types.
We visited with several of Tim's co-workers, and then we had to say "good-bye" so that we could go to the TORCH Parent's Night Out at the Weber's.
Now, lest you feel sorry for the boys while we were out having fun socializing, they were home with Danielle Hoppel, who is 13 and one of their favorite people. They hardly need a babysitter, but it is so nice to find someone so responsible AND fun!
She was regaling them with the most amazing and creative stories. Brendan said that his stomach hurt from laughing so hard. They were still telling me about the tales she made up this morning...
So anyway, we went to the Weber's house, which was all decorated for Christmas, and enjoyed the nicest time with many of our homeschooling friends.
Paula and Chris Hoppel were there, (Mark, their older son was home with their other kids), and about six other couples and some moms whose husbands were unable to come. We had some great food and so much fun visiting! Dan Weber came up with a game that involved Christmas Movie Trivia, and we all had fun answering the questions.
We had to get home to relieve Danielle, but we were just ahead of Paula and Chris, so they picked her up and took her home.
Saturday night was another nice evening out at the home of one of Tim's co-workers, Sharon.
She has a beautiful house on Rumsey Island, down near Joppatown. Most of the people from Tim's office were there. These are people that we have known for almost ten years, through SAIC and now Battelle. It is really nice to have a chance to catch up on how everyone is doing. The kids are all growing up and people have grandkids or kids that are in college. Quite a history and kind of like a family.
The boys were with Danielle again, so they were entertained...something about Pooh and Tigger and Christopher Robin blowing up the Hundred Acre Wood...Sounded like Calvin and Hobbes meet A.A. Milne...
Yesterday we went to Mass, and then John and I went for a bike ride down into town while Tim took Brendan and Paul up to the church to work on the video system.
It was chilly but very sunny, and we had such a nice ride. It was nice to be able to ride with John because he is at an age where he is very reliable on the road, and he can manage a longer distance. We had so much fun!
We are both paying for it today though...those kitchen chairs are hard!
I'll add some pictures later.
This week we are taking school easy and pretty much on Christmas Vacation. We do have piano each day, and I have some Science shows that I want them to watch. It's funny, today while they were "on vacation" John spent a whole bunch of time on the computer doing a powerpoint project, he also worked on an art project, Brendan and Paul were building with Legos and doing some other computer research of some sort, and it just seemed like they learned so much today without even trying!
Paul came running through the room with his jet a couple of minutes ago, saying "This is your captain speaking, just wanted to let you know that there is really someone up here. We will be doing some barrel rolls so that we can beat another plane onto the airstrip." Totally oblivious to the fact that he is cracking me up!
Anyway...
