What a trooper

I wanted to take a moment to brag a little about my husband today. After the weekend we had he deserves a little praise!

First we had the opportunity to host the Thanksgiving meal at our house this year. Usually we do this at his parent’s house, but I offered to do the work this year and although we have a smaller setting to have people over in – it worked out very well and I think everyone went home quite full!

Bob and Becky took the boys home with them Thursday night and Dominic and I went up to Sioux Falls to stay at my parents house. I wanted to do the traditional “Black Friday” shopping and I roped him in to come along so I didn’t have to go by myself!

Dominic has never experienced this phenomenon and I tried to prepare him for what he could expect. He has a great love for crowds and shopping so you can imagine how excited he was to get up at 4am so that we could be at Wal-Mart before 5am. J

As in other years, we had to park a LONG way away from the front doors – in another store’s lot in fact and walk. It was a brisk 20 degrees. We got a cart and headed out to stake out a spot to wait for the “5am bell” that announced we could begin the search for those amazing, once in a lifetime deals!

We found the first item on the list and decided to start there. Oh and I should describe this “list” to you before I go on. I had cut out pictures from the ad of those things we were looking for and had them taped on a sheet of paper. Sad – I know!!

So we are waiting and he tells me to go on up ahead and look for the next “thing” on our list and he will wait to grab 2 of the first item. I don’t know that the “bell” ever sounded, but he said that one woman picked up the item just to “look at it” and then another and another – feeding frenzy. He looked at the diminishing pile of that particular item and realized that he could be “polite” no longer. If he didn’t muscle his way in a bit and grab the 2 we wanted they were going to be gone!

Ahh, my hero. Weaving his way between crazed women for a present for our kids!! And I am not kidding when I say crazed. One woman lost all patience – if she had any to begin with - and started screaming and cursing at the mass of people who weren’t walking the way she thought they should be walking! It was almost comical!

After an hour and a long wait in line we made our way to freedom and decided where we would go next. Yes, we do have serious problems I know!! We made our way to Home Depot where we returned not once but 2 more times. They had some really good deals, friendly staff and NO LINES! Then made our way to a couple more stores where again it was nothing like Wal-Mart and then went for the best part – breakfast at Perkins!

We were back at home by 10:30am but the hopes of a nap were nowhere in sight. It was warm out – 43 degrees and Dominic decided that he should take advantage and try and get up our Christmas lights. So we spent the afternoon digging through piles of icicle lights in the hopes of finding just one strand that worked completely, and finally gave up and opened up the new boxes I got on clearance last year!

We – mostly he – worked non stop through until 5pm that night when we had to return back to Sioux Falls again for dinner with my parents and Beth and a meeting at 7:30pm. The meeting ended up being cancelled and so we went back to Wal-Mart, I know seriously you don’t even have to say it, where we found some more things in a much calmer environment!

Saturday was the day to put up the tree. Our nephew Casey was visiting and helped us with everything. And when I say us – I really mean me. At this point my back has all but stopped functioning for me and I had to sit on the couch and watch as the boys did all the work.

We have one of those older artificial trees where each row of branches has to be put in one at a time. In addition we have this “technique” where we weave lights in and out of each branch on each row so that it looks like the tree has lights within it. It is really beautiful but it is a lot of work!

Oh and to top it all off we couldn’t find our tree lights. I searched every bin and bag (with the exception of one) so we had to resort to opening up new lights I got last year so we could have lights on the tree. Hours later – when the kids were in bed – Dominic opened that last bin that appeared to have the stuff to put up our nativity set and lo and behold under all of that were our tree lights. Of course!!

Sunday was church and Sunday school and then it was decorate the church time after the service. We helped put up the tree in our fellowship hall. It is a sad, sad tree that is broken at the top and the bottom. Dominic, in an effort to help get the tree in an upright and safe position, sliced open his hand and said if it had been any deeper he would have needed stitches!

We – and again I mean Dominic and Isaac - finished off our Sunday by putting the garland up on our house outside and a few other things in the house. And fell asleep to a Star Wars rerun on TNT. Did I mention that Dominic is getting a bad cold and felt sick and miserable all weekend too?

Seriously – what a trooper! He made an effort all weekend to do the next right thing – even if it meant a sacrifice on his part. He was helpful, patient, understand and positive. We wouldn’t have evidence of Christmas all around our house this year if it weren’t for all of his hard work! So thank you Dominic for everything you did for me and for our family this weekend! I appreciate it more than I can express in words!