A Perrino Family Sunday

My sister, the kids, and my mom came up to visit again. This time we weren't immersed in history, but instead were at the mall. We went to Target to get some Secret Santa gifts - don't forget the baseball cards - and then headed over to the American Girl store so that my youngest niece could pick out a few things for her upcoming birthday. The rest of us were happy that Maria was happy, but... I don't know. There's something about that store that just doesn't sit well with me. They pay grown adults to comb dolls hair. There is a grown man greeting you as you walk through the door, letting you know that if you can't find what you need there are plenty of sales staff to help you. And there are. Plenty. Way too many, just there waiting to help little consumers in training spend good money on... dolls. Some may get upset that those hard-working Americans making over $250,000 may have to pay more in taxes to subsidize healthcare for those less monetarily fortunate, but I'd much rather these well-to-do folk spend their money on those less well-to-do than throw their money down the toilet by buying this American Girl stuff. But enough of my political two cents.

We couldn't leave American Girl without a group photo at the entrance (notice that Maria is in the bag. Too bad Mike wasn't in this photo - this could have been their holiday card.

After the American Girl experience, we all came back to Dedham. Maria couldn't wait to play with her new American Girl items (the bubble tub is quite the item - but it didn't come with the bathrobe for the doll!), but I had my messy yard on my mind. I went outside to rake, and the rest of the family joined me. We started out raking but this quickly devolved into leaf play: Leaves were stuffed up shirts, into faces, down pants... you name it, leaves went there. We did manage to fill about six and a half more bags of leaves (and hopefully - fingers crossed! - this is the last bout of raking for this year, which thankfully will mean we won't be raking in the below-freezing temperatures again like last year), and also managed to not poke out any eyes, or ingest leaves, or anything else terrible. I will say that with all this help it took no time to get the yard raked. Thank you, helpers! We will return the favor on Thursday, when we rake your yard in between delicious Thanksgiving courses.

Next up... Thanksgiving!