6 years

6 years feels awfully short and awfully long all at the same time.  I have a suspicion that the older one gets, the wonkier time works.

As usual, it's school vacation week which is great for everyday activities and school not interfering with Naomi's birthday, but also means vacation activities are doing the interfering instead.  We spent the last few days in Connecticut and came back today, with a 3-hour detour at IKEA in the afternoon.  The kids seemed to enjoy it the first hour, started dragging during the second, and probably would have held a mutiny if it had taken one minute longer to get out of there.  We were back on the road just in time to hit all the Boston rush hour traffic.

I didn't get any pictures at IKEA, but did snap a few last night.  We had been cooped up for days with kids having colds, and went out to Texas Roadhouse for dinner.  This is not a regular place for us so that helped make it special.  I used to waitress at a couple different ones and the kids have grown to love steak this last year.

She started excitedly yelling "Juice box!" from the moment we entered the lobby, but the hostess thought she was saying "Doo Boh!"

This one ordered off the adult menu.

Watching the line dancers for Cotton Eye Joe.

I tried to get one while he was snapping his fingers, so I got side eye instead.

We ended up getting back into NH right as the sun was setting, so the daylight was just about gone by time I made it to the cemetery.  As you can see, there is still not a headstone... which means it's been twice as long as my worst-case prediction of 3 years, ha!  I do think it will happen this year as the name plate that the funeral home provided broke so there is nothing there now. :'(  I was surprised as I've seen name plates still around that were placed in the 80's, but I guess those were more flush to the ground to avoid being hit by the mower.  The kids were all asleep and it was super cold, so we didn't stay long, but someone was there earlier and had cleared what snow they could. <3

I got several notes and messages today from people remembering Naomi's birthday.  Thank you!  It is appreciated.