It was a birthday-ful weekend for the Johnson Family as we get geared up for Thanksgiving and t he Christmas season by first spending a few days opening presents with friends.

We spent Saturday evening at Phil and Jen’s house with 30 or so of our mutual friends celebrating Phil’s birthday. “Bar food” was on the menu, which involved a deep fryer that left my clothes smelling like delicious grease the morning after. Chips and dips, egg rolls filled with smoked pork and potatoes, as well as chicken wings were all on the menu. I was a bit anxious how Hannah and Aaron would deal with the crowd of people in a living space clearly designed to hold less than half of them, but they did fine. Other kiddos were also on hand to be cute and eat with the rest of us, but it was still a bit of a madhouse. We did wish Phil a happy birthday before we left. I’m not sure if he heard us.

By contrast, we celebrated Hannah’s birthday the day after and just invited her best friend Sammy over to celebrate. Of course, that meant Miss Lexi and August came as well, but that was all good because it gave grown-ups time to catch up and little Aaron someone to toddle around with all afternoon. Grammy brought over a pair of Dora and Doc McStuffins cakes while Pop-Pop introduced Aaron to static electricity. My mom and dad came over a little later as well, along with Uncle Jonny, an we got to have cake and watch Hannah open presents together. We had a couple pizzas from Papa Murphy’s for dinner before calling it a night.

It was very low-key, but Hannah seemed to have a tremendously fun birthday. She actually got up at five to discover her room filled with pink balloons and was jumping all morning at church telling everyone, “I’m four! I’m four!”

Then on Monday, we had another visit with Marco Rubio in Council Bluffs. I met him briefly back in July when he visited, and this time around I brought my mom and Vivian to hear him speak. There was some Q&A after his talk, and the Senator from Florida hung around to meet and greet just about everyone in attendance. The usual characters were on hand for interviews afterward, and I was impressed with Rubio’s accessibility. The questions weren’t screened, and pretty much anyone was able to approach him afterward. (And somehow I wound up on Fox News again as a result.)

Then on Tuesday, we brought the kids down to the park for lunch before the inevitable cold and snow comes this Thanksgiving to bring a brief end to our park time.