I’m finally back from a long vacation. Meaning from the Essentially Esther desk. However long it’s been, believe me, I haven’t been idle……no….not at all.

Our Thanksgiving trip to John, Barb, LJ’s and Bear’s house was great. We arrived safely to join them and later that evening Jennifer and Marc made it in. That put us all together except for Becky’s Jonathan and family. It is rare for that many of us to make it at the same time and we planned to make it a royal occasion.

John put the “table picture” with the guests eating so I decided to show you how pretty it was before we overpowered it. John and Barb had worked hard to make their home festive and comfortable for all of us and we had a wonderful time.

Jennifer flew home to CT from New Orleans and Marc drove with us back to Missouri. Marc is a good “fix-it” guy and offered to lay a laminate floor for me in the living room. We procured the necessities on Monday after arriving home Sunday night and on Tuesday, George and Marc began the task. George had to leave Wednesday morning so I took over George’s job and that afternoon Becky took off work to help finish up.

I defy anyone who says……. “it’s easy installation.” It does not live up to the directions on the box because obviously they are talking about an empty room, not a small sized furniture store like I live in. However tiring and difficult it turned out beautiful and I’m grateful for a few suggestions Marc pointed out. He was oh so right. I’m very satisfied.

I’ve been playing “catch up” since coming home. Now I’m cleaning up the dust and trying to get things back to order. I have several pictures of the trip and renovation that I will be putting on as the days go by.

I’ve missed all of you and hope you’ve missed me too. This is all for today…….I’m off on a project.

Essentially Esther