(((November 30, 2015)))
Nicole's POV
Thanksgiving was fun; we spent time with his family, ate, football. We rode around Arizona, and we went to see Tony Beets at his house down there. We left Arizona on a plane Friday night to California.
California was awesome. We went sightseeing, to places like the Hollywood sign, Rodeo Drive, the Walk of Fame, some beaches, along with some other smaller places. We went to a football game at USC. Parker had some work-related stuff to do, and I tagged along. I got a lot of pictures, and I even got some souvenirs.
We're back from California, back home in Haines. Parker had to do some work for his dad today, and I'm just at home, cleaning and washing clothes. I have a lot of stuff to do today. I have family to call, and the cable guy is coming today, and I'm going to his house to help his mom. We're going to get pictures together to put into one big album for Grandma and Grandpa for Christmas.
I called my cousin, and my best friend, Hannah first, while I was folding clothes on my floor. It rang a few times until she answered.
"Hey." She said.
"Hey, Hannie. What are you doing?"
"Nothing. Just hanging around. Lee's taking me somewhere later. What are you doing?"
"Just folding clothes. I've been cleaning and doing laundry."
"Oh. Where's Parker?"
"Working with his dad. How's it going at home?"
"Good. Kayleigh's been doing real better than she was. I think she'll be alright. Me, on the other hand, not so good."
"What happened?"
"Just getting into a lot of arguments with my mom and dad. They don't like Lee that much, and they just blow everything out of proportion."
"What did you do, Hannah?"
"Well, um, I might've stayed out with Lee a little later than curfew."
"How much later?"
"Couple hours." She chuckled.
"Did you do anything?"
"Well...."
"Hannah."
"Yes."
"Hannah! Please tell me you were safe."
"Well, not exactly."
"So you weren't."
"No....but I'm not pregnant."
"How do you know that, Hannah?"
"I just know, okay?"
"Promise me that you'll at least be safe from now on."
"Okay, I will."
"Thank you."
"So how are you and Parker doing?"
"Great. I'm going to his house later to help his mom with a present for his grandparents. Parker is great."
"Have you, um, you know?"
"Oh, no. I'm not like you, Hannah." I teased her.
"That's mean! That was the first time that I've ever done it, and you know it."
"Chill. I know."
"Just wondering, I mean, you sleep in the same bed every night."
"Yeah. We've gotten close, but I'm just not ready for that right now. Not that I haven't wanted to, though."
"Yeah. How was Cali?"
"Awesome. I'll send you some pictures from it. Hey, when's the Christmas party at home?"
"December 13."
"Two days before my birthday. I hope that Parker hasn't gotten plans for somewhere else because of my birthday."
"Where you going for your birthday?"
"I don't know. The mountains probably."
"Cool. So you're coming home for the Christmas thing, right?"
"Yeah, we'll be there."
"Good. I gotta go, my mom is telling me to do something."
"Okay, bye, I love you."
"Love you too. Bye."
The call ended, and I proceeded to call my grandma that lives in North Carolina. I talked to her, and she was bummed because I said that I wouldn't be there for Christmas Day. She does Christmas on the day of it, along with my mom's side of the family. But she was content that I was going home around my birthday, and said that she would just give me my presents then. I talked to her for a while. I called Kayleigh last, and we talked for a while about her school, friends, and stuff. She hung up when one of her friends came over. She's obviously doing just fine. I'm happy about that.
The cable guy came and hooked up the cable television in the living room. It took almost an hour before he got it hooked up and left. It was around 3:00 when I started to go. I grabbed the box of pictures from my closet and took out to my car. I went back in to get my things, and drove off down the road.
***
"Hey, Mom." I said as I walked into the house, carrying the box. (I had begun to call her Mom and call Roger, Dad. I never called my own parents Mom and Dad. I always called them Mama and Daddy. It still feels kind of weird, but they are like my parents, especially now.)
"Hey, honey. Is that the box with the pictures?" She said from the chair in the living room.
"Yup." I set the box down on the table and sat down on the couch.
"I found a blank album at the store. I thought that maybe you and Parker could decorate it or something."
"That'd be cool. I would love to do that."
"Great." She smiled as she opened the box.
We picked out a lot of pictures from mine and her photo albums. She had some really good pictures in her albums. We put all the pictures we wanted to put into the album in a pile for me to take to get copies made. There's a lot, more than a hundred pictures, easily. I thought about what to decorate the album like. There would be a lot from when they were younger, because Mom got copies of really older pictures from Grandma. We wanted it to be like an album of their life, and I wanted the outside to reflect their life. I would have to talk to Parker about it and see what he thought about it.
We organized the photos from oldest to newest, and hopefully they'll be in order when we get them copied. I was gone for about thirty minutes while I dropped off the pictures to get copied. I must've told the people there a million times not to lose the pictures or tear them up. Those pictures mean more than anything to our family. I went back to the house to help Mom cook.
Parker and Dad came back home right around the time that the food got through cooking. Mom said that I could go talk to Parker while she finished up cooking if I wanted to. I smiled and said thanks while I walked back to his room where he was changing at.
"Hey." I said as I stood in the doorway.
He was putting on a new shirt. When he finished, he walked over to me and gave me a hug. "Hey, baby."
I went over and laid on his bed. He laid down with me. "How was work?" I asked.
"It was work. Same ole', same ole'. What did you do today?"
"Cleaned at the house....called Hannah, Kayleigh, and Nana...then came over here."
"Find some pictures?"
"Yeah, a lot, actually. Oh, and your mom put us in charge of decorating the album."
"You mean, she put you in charge." He smiled.
"No, you gotta help me." I smiled.
"Fine, I'll help you."
"Oh, the Christmas thing with my crowd is December 13th."
"Two days before your birthday?"
"Yup. You don't have anything to do, right?"
"No, I just thought we would be in the mountains or something then."
"Yeah, me too. But I already told them we were coming. We can leave right after it."
"Okay, I'll get some tickets to there for the day before. What day is the 13th on?"
"Sunday."
"I'll get tickets to the mountains or wherever you want to go for Sunday night. You need to decide."
"I know. I will. Hey, what about Disneyworld?"
"Disneyworld?"
"Yeah. I wanna go there."
"You sure you don't wanna go to the mountains?....and stay in a cabin...just me and you...go hiking, and water rafting...what about that theme park you wanted to go to in the mountains? We could have a lot more fun by ourselves in the mountains." He wrapped his arms around me.
"That sounds so good. Yeah, let's go to the mountains. In North Carolina, right?"
"Yeah. We can just drive there from your house."
"True. Yay! I'm so excited to go now."
"Me too, baby." He smiled.
"Food's done!" Mom called from the kitchen.
We walked into the kitchen where Dad was sitting at the table and Mom was putting food in a bowl.
"I'm going to go carry this to John and Erma. You guys go ahead and eat." Mom said.
"Oh, Mom. We'll carry it. We'll just eat over there with them." Parker offered.
"You sure, Parker?"
"Yeah, I've been meaning to get over there to see them anyway."
"Okay, thanks."
"No problem, Mom."