Last Grundy Visit till Christmas

Yesterday afternoon I drove back to Grundy to meet up with Leigh on her birthday and start packing up our trusty Yaris, Betsy. My dad got really quiet and squeezed me pretty hard, my step-mom cried a little bit. Since I've never been a parent I don't really understand why just having an adult child hanging around your house and eating your food can be such a comfort for a parent, but alas they were happy to have me watching their TV and reading in their living room for several days. Leigh and I have pretty solid plans to fly back to Virginia for Christmas this year, so it won't but much longer between visits than when we lived in Buffalo, but in their minds our living in Alaska must make it seem less likely that we will return often.

Yesterday evening we celebrated Leigh's birthday very small scale. Her grandmother cooked dinner and there were two cakes to be eaten. We ate too much, mostly in the realm of sugar. We must get away from the southern US very soon so we can stop eating! *sigh* Anyway, it was a good time mostly consisting of us listening to her mom, aunt, and grandmother chattering away and telling stories. My relationship with Leigh's family is pretty tense involving mandatory visits and a series of polite questions that have about as much warmth as a job interview, but dinner with a few select members last night was quite nice. Everyone was in a good mood and nobody once said any unpleasant about us moving away. That's about as good as I could have reasonably asked for.

So I'm here now, once again surrounded by all my worldly possessions in a rather small room (can you say "claustrophobia?") with a mountain of little tasks to complete before we drive away on Monday morning. It's nearly 1pm now and I haven't actually accomplished anything! Not good. Hopefully after getting dressed and starting my laundry the spirit will strike me so Leigh and I can get a lot done today, rather than leaving it all for Sunday afternoon.