Against their better judgment, Alex and Sue thought today would be a great day to go shopping. Which they did. Right after breakfast. An ‘all-day’ shopping trip to the Chandler Fashion Mall. My guess is they either had lots of things to return or they will have.

After the girls left, I took Max to the play structure in the park not too far from our house. We started out with Max on his new Strider ‘bike’, but after about a block of that I ended up carrying the bike while Max doddled along behind me, completely distracted by every house with Christmas decorations on the yard. And there are quite a few. And now that I measure the actual distance using Google Maps I see it is 1.3kms to the park. So that’s a pretty long way for those little legs to walk — there and back, plus a whole lot of motoring around at the park in between.

We spent the morning there. The sun was shining so even though the thermometer said it wasn’t very warm out, it wasn’t unpleasant. A couple of parents stopped by and helped their little sweet peas teeter-tooter, swing, and slide. Max ended up sitting on the ground with his new bike lying beside him while he baptized it with sand. I sat on the bench and watched. Eventually I thought we should head back home — surely Max must need to go pee by now. And then, on the way, we got distracted at the car wash — and had to watch a guy wash his dirty dune buggy on the trailer behind his truck. And finally, when that was done, we continued on our way only to be met by a familiar face riding a bicycle toward us. Daddy! what’s he doing on a bike? Nevermind, what are WE doing out here? It’s 12:30, W-A-Y past lunch time! Tim hurried back to barbecue the hotdogs while I did my best to keep Max focused on getting back to the house in time for lunch.

After hotdogs Max went for his nap. Tim and I watched a bit of golf on TV. When I woke up Sue and Alex were sitting on the couch next to me, back from their shopping trip. Success! All around.

After a little snack it was time to get everybody ready for supper out. The kids took us out to the Mexican restaurant for our Christmas gift. Good times there. Too cold to sit outside in their patio, even with heaters going. So we sat inside and were entertained by Max.

The ride home included a few detours to look at all the Christmas lights (again). And Max was adamant that we find some of those ‘cool reindeers with their heads moving all around’. (There must have been some big sales for those wire mesh lit-up reindeer at Walmart this fall!)

Back at the ranch, after a quick bath and a bedtime story, Max was down for the count. The rest of us enjoyed some dessert and watched another episode or two of “The Trip to Italy” on TV. And that’s the end of another successful day!

(No photos today — Sue took my phone with her to the mall all day, and so all I have to go on is my photographic memory.)