In case you are curious, when preparing to leave for a trip involving an airplane flight, just because said flight takes place shortly before Thanksgiving is no guarentee that the airport will be crowded. In fact, karma dictates that the earlier you arrive at the airport (especially when holidays are involved), the more nonexistant the line will be at the security check-in. Granted, the distinct lack of crowds in the airport has absolutely no relation to how packed the *plane* is going to be, but all this is a longwinded way of saying that we cleverly got to the airport over an hour early and got to sit around and twiddle our thumbs until it was time to board. It is a good thing I packed four different knitting projects, plus stopped at the store on the way to pick up a magazine of logic puzzles. And how I ever survived flying before Richard got me the itty bitty mp3 player last year, I’ll never know.

But we arrived without incident, and despite having to trek all over the place to find the car rental desks, we got our car and found our hotel (through the miracle that is a handheld GPS unit – all hail modern technology) and checked in, and the very next morning we headed off to my little sister’s house bright and early, because small people do not believe in this concept called ‘sleeping in’.

After breakfast was consumed and large quantities of coffee were drunk, it was time for the women to all head off for some girl time. My sisters and decided that it was high time my mom experienced her first pedicure, so we made the arrangements and then bundled her into the car and did not tell her where we were going until we arrived.

It was a lot of fun. My little sister and her daughter get pedicures as a last-day-of-school tradition, so my niece is used to them by now, although at the age of 8, she still has a very hard time no squirming and squealing with laughter when they were touching her feet. The salon set us all up in a row, with massaging chairs, and all the adults got paraffin wax treatments, although it was a bit too hot for the niece (she did dip in one toe, but it *was* pretty warm). We decided that if we were going to do pedicures we might as well do them fancy, so we all picked out little designs for the big toe, even my mom. And then when we were done we all crowded around the drying station and tucked our feet under the drying lamp and laughed ourselves silly at each other and our pretty, girly toes.

We came home and my sister made an assortment of sandwiches for lunch, and then the kids all went off to play while the adults congregated in the living room with books and crossword puzzles. I sat with my little sister and walked her through some new-to-her knitting techniques. The kids all went outside and played with the chickens. We ate dinner and then followed that with ice cream cake, and then once the kids were in bed we all trooped downstairs and drank more coffee (decaf this time) and watched Bones (because that is one my little sister’s favorite shows) and talked until eyes were starting to droop, and then Richard and I finally made our way back to the hotel, where I am taking advantage of the free wireless to catch up on email and check in to make sure no one has crashed the intranet while I am out of the office, and shortly, to try to get some sleep because, well, see earlier comment about small people and the non-belief in sleeping in.