home again, home again, jiggety jog

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I just recently returned from a little trip to Denver. I had a great time relaxing at my sister's. We worked on some Christmas presents for family and friends, took the kids swimming, played at the park, babysat and fed about a million kids, well 6 between the two of us, but it sure felt like a zoo. On returning home from one outing, we stepped out of the noisy van, leaving the kids inside. We watched as the van shook back and forth and expressed our disbelief at the noise volume which no doubt could be heard miles away. We even stole away by ourselves a couple of times to go to a chocolate tasting party, and out for appetizers and desserts at a great place called The White Chocolate Grill. I liked the dark atmosphere and their food that we sampled was delicious! We got the grilled artichokes, the AZ Egg Rolls (which I could eat everyday for the rest of my life) and for desserts we tried the French White Chocolate Bread Pudding, which was made from croissants. I'm telling you, all bread puddings should be made from croissants, and the White Chocolate Banana Cream Pie. Fabulous. I love how both outings we went on by ourselves had to do with chocolate...

Anyway, as nice as it is to get away for a while, it's always the best to come home to one's normal life. Well, normal to some people. Normal to us is HF asking me to punch him in the face so he could show me some exciting new things he learned at a recent training. Normal is being woken up in the middle of the night to HF violently strangling his bedside lamp in his sleep. Normal is me watching him for a moment in bewilderment, then shaking my head and wacking him and saying, "Stop it!" to which he releases the lamp, wakes up and says, "huh?" then falls back on his pillow asleep. Normal is us laying down in bed on a Sunday afternoon while the kids watch a movie and wrestling. I could tell that he was trying not to "go cop" on me. My goal was to tickle him because he is extremely ticklish. His goal was to not let me tickle him, but to go easy on me otherwise. Normal is discovering that HF didn't eat while I was gone. The food in the house was pretty much the way I left it, and he said he didn't eat out more than twice. When I asked him how he was still alive, he responded that he "drank A LOT of water". Normal is that on our first night back, the kids fought a lot and Luke woke up in the middle of the night with a bloody nose. By the time he came upstairs to see us, it was a dried bloody beard and mustache, with bloody hands. Are you ready for us to be home HF? Sometimes I wonder if we bring more excitement to his life than any shift could.

You know, I try to get away from it all, but I love coming back home. I love our normal.