It's a Jolly Holiday

Wonderful, long day today! It began with me waking up and coming out to a birthday-decorated house for Lum's sixteenth birthday, and is ending now at 2:30 am after watching endless episodes of Downton Abbey and singing to myself whilst doing dishes. We are throwing Lum a real party next weekend, but today was filled with cinnamon rolls, presents, and schwarma, so of course it couldn't help but be special. :) With Carolin and Brittany here, we had a lovely family celebration, complete with the Jackson tradition of hiding the presents for the birthday girl to search for, and a four-verse-long birthday song. Makes me excited for my birthday! I love celebrating things. Sarah, Katelyn, and Lum are the same way, and so these few months we've grabbed at any excuse to throw a party - if only for us. Still so fun. It's less than two weeks till Thanksgiving, and then it will be December and CHRISTMAS! Somewhere in there the shipment from the US is supposed to arrive, so there's a whole slough of jolliness headed our way! Homesickness too, undoubtedly. I can just imagine Sarah and I wandering about the house clutching our things from America and from our families, alternately sobbing and stuffing our faces with delicious unhealthy food (well, that part's mostly just me...) I'm excited for the holidays, but I'm sure it won't be pretty at times. It will most definitely be a bump in the emotional road trip I've been on. But bumps are part of life, and life isn't any less exciting because of them. In a few hours we are going to get up and go to Nelly's sister's wedding! And then probably spend the rest of the weekend sleeping and watching as much Downton Abbey as we possibly can before Monday pops up again. I hope you all have a likewise lovely weekend! Waka fine!