I just realized that it has been almost a month since our last blog. We have been so busy in the last couple of weeks, that blogging definitely took a backseat to everything else we have going on. I can't believe we are almost to Christmas. Christmas!! Eek!
Ever have one of those weeks when it seems like the week was so very long and yet flew by in the blink of an eye all at once? That was this last week for us. Monday of this week seems like it was forever ago when we think about the fact that Kenzie was in school, yet when we think that my parents were in town for 5 days, it seems like they weren't here for more than a few hours. Crazy. This last week we celebrated Thanksgiving. This is always one of my favorite holidays. I like it for many reasons. One of which is the time we get to spend together as a family. Steven usually takes off for the week of Thanksgiving. We have our families over for dinner on Thanksgiving Day. My parents usually get a timeshare for the long weekend in town (even though they only live an hour and a half away) so they can spend time with us. It's just a fun time.
Ever have one of those weeks when it seems like the week was so very long and yet flew by in the blink of an eye all at once? That was this last week for us. Monday of this week seems like it was forever ago when we think about the fact that Kenzie was in school, yet when we think that my parents were in town for 5 days, it seems like they weren't here for more than a few hours. Crazy. This last week we celebrated Thanksgiving. This is always one of my favorite holidays. I like it for many reasons. One of which is the time we get to spend together as a family. Steven usually takes off for the week of Thanksgiving. We have our families over for dinner on Thanksgiving Day. My parents usually get a timeshare for the long weekend in town (even though they only live an hour and a half away) so they can spend time with us. It's just a fun time.
We started our fun on Friday before Thanksgiving. Sort of. Kenzie was in school but Steven put in his time at work by Wednesday really, so he was able to take off. We just ran a few errands while Kenzie was in school in the morning and then we met her class at the park behind their school for the annual Friendship Walk. Basically, all the kindergarten classes walk from their classes, through the fence, and to the big park behind the school to play together on the playground for about an hour. Families can come join in on the fun though, so we did just that. Steven actually wasn't feeling well because the virus that I think I had (though definitely not as bad) about 2 weeks before (then Kenzie got before Will had it) finally hit him. He was a trooper though. It stunk that he was sick a lot of the weekend to start his time off, but thankfully only Will had that fever and Steven was mostly fine over the weekend. Just tired and congested. Anyway, the time spent at the park was fun. I know the kids in her class at this point, so it was fun to see them and the rest of the kindergarteners out there having fun. We ended up leaving about 45 minutes in because we knew it would be winding down soon and Steven was just not feeling great. Plus, Will was requesting lunch as he is always hungry. After we picked up Kenzie from school later in the day, we ran a few errands including one to find Kenzie a new outfit for Thanksgiving. Will actually fell asleep in the car so it was nice to have Steven because he was able to sit in the car with him and let him nap for a bit. We had pizza and watched part of Moana at dinner before turning in for the night. It was a long day and I think everyone was tired from either being sick currently or still feeling like they were getting over everything from the weeks before.
On Saturday we laid low for the most part. I met up with two of my college roommates and our honorary roommate and her little guy for lunch. One of the roommates is moving to North Carolina soon so we wanted to get together before she goes. It was a nice lunch. Steven was still feeling pretty rough so I didn't stay out too long. Otherwise, we didn't do anything too much. Our weekend was definitely the calm before the craziness that is the week of Thanksgiving. On Sunday we started our morning at church. Always a great way to start the day. We had to be there a bit early as we had worship rehearsal. Steven still does the tech and I have started singing with the worship team sometimes. The kids played around in the sanctuary while we had rehearsal and then we took them to their classes. Once church was over, we decided to go to Steak n Shake for lunch and then run an errand. The craziest part was when we got home, Will asked me to make him lunch. Um... yeah, so we just had that. And he felt he needed another one. This has been going on a lot lately. Maybe he is growing again. I do know that his pj pants from last year are all about 2 inches too short whereas they were almost too long last year. Haha! We didn't do too much for the rest of the day but did manage to get some yard work taken care of. On Monday Kenzie actually had school. This was the hurricane makeup day. It did let us get some things done though while she was in school. Then, once she got home we ran a few more errands before she had dance. While Steven took Kenzie to dance, I took Will to trivia with a bunch of our framily from church. It was fun. Unfortunately, with Kenzie's dance class being so late, they weren't able to meet us out there.
Tuesday we decided to to go Animal Kingdom. We figured this would be the least crowded of the Disney parks during Thanksgiving. Unforunately, Steven took a bit of a turn for the worse. He wasn't feeling well at all. He stuck it out though for a long time. We got to AK almost as soon as it opened and went straight for the safari. We were able to get right on without a FastPass since it was early. Also, since it was so early, a lot of the animals were pretty active. It was a good ride around the safari. We then went over to Dinoland. On the way there we decided to stop and visit Pocahontas. We have never actually met her. It was a sort of long wait, but it was fun. The kids were pretty excited with her. We then stopped at the Dino play area. We have never actually done this because it is often closed when we wander by. The kids LOVED it. Both of them braved the huge slide in the middle. The thing must have been 3-4 stories high. I admit... I went down it too. I was at the top with them while Steven was at the bottom. Why take the stairs when I could take the slide? Finally, after watching them run around in circles and slide down slide after slide, we dragged them out of there so we could make our FP for the Nemo musical. We sat in the bubble zone again and the show was as great as it always is. We were also seated just in front of the interpreters doing ASL. It was pretty interesting. Then it was time for lunch. We brought our lunch but found a spot to sit at the pizza place. By the time we finished lunch Steven was feeling pretty bad and it had started raining. We actually had FP for the boat ride in Pandora which we have never done so we were still debating trying to do that. We walked into Pandora to look around (and it was pretty cool) but we had quite some time left before our FP and the rain was getting pretty steady so we decided to cut our losses and head out without doing the boat ride ( or the Lion King show which we had even later FP for). That is a major plus to being a passholder. We can go back (almost) anytime. Also, this was our first time doing Disney with absolutely no stroller (other than one quick jaunt at Hollywood Studios). Both kids did awesome! I hit my 10,000 step goal before we left the park so I would love to know how many steps the kids each took since their little legs are even shorter. I ended up driving home and when we got home Steven turned back around to head out to urgent care. Turns out, he had bronchitis and an ear infection. We got him hooked up with some meds and by the end of the night he was feeling slightly better. At least he was able to function without as much pain. I ended up taking the kids to Taco Bell for dinner without him so he could rest. Then the kids sat down to watch a movie before bed.
Wednesday we basically just hung around the house getting ready for Thanksgiving. We had a lot of cleaning and food prep to do. We did story time at the library which both kids love and Kenzie rarely gets to do anymore. We also ended up going to Lowes at one point and finding a fire pit on sale (which was technically a Black Friday sale but since the sign was already up, they honored the awesome price) which we couldn't leave in the store for the price it was listed at. We have wanted one for years so we were super excited to get started using it. We met my parents for dinner at Tijuana Flats as they were driving through town on the way to their timeshare for the weekend. The kids would have loved to have gone to their timeshare right that moment with them but we didn't want to send them down when we knew my parents had to check in and everything. After that I had to head out to a Girl Scout leader meeting. We had the ever popular cookie training. My co-leader and I both wanted to be there since this will be our first time doing this. It is sort of overwhelming, but I think we are going to be just fine. Plus, they said Daisies sell cookies really easily because they are so adorable. Works for me. This is what will fund whatever we want to work towards as a large goal for the year as well as hopefully some things next year as the girls continue on in our troop. Bonus: They gave each of us a box of the s'mores cookies for being there.
Thursday was the day. The big turkey day. Steven got up early to head out to the turkey trot he signed up for. He did really well. Especially when you take into account that two days earlier, he could barely function. He finished in just over 37 minutes so he was pretty happy with that. He said he had a lot of trouble breathing which was likely the bronchitis. I got up about the time he left and got to work. The turkey had to be in pretty early. Usually my mom is able to help with it, but my parents weren't at my house in time so this ended up being my first year flying entirely solo prepping the turkey and stuffing. Everyone was at the house in time to watch some of the parade and football. We had our normal appetizers as lunch just to hold everyone over until "dinner time". We function by the southern clock for Thanksgiving dinner. Dinner is about 3pm. We were right on time this year. Often, I am running almost 30 minutes late but I think we had everything on the table just in time. Also, my turkey was awesome! It turned out great. As did everything else (most of which wasn't made by yours truly). We also prescribe to the Southern style casseroles. Our sweet potato casserole can rot your teeth and we use cheese and bacon in the green bean casserole. I know everyone believes their Thanksgiving foods are the best and I have to say I would say the same about ours. Haha! We had yummy desserts once dinner was done before everyone had to head out. My parents took the kids with them to the timeshare for the night which was nice because Steven and I were able to hang out alone and in silence. Haha! Honestly, the kids were so excited that I think if they knew how to drive, they would have been at the timeshare much earlier than they made it.
Friday we got up "late". It was 7am, but for us that is sort of late. We didn't rush around to get out of the house and it was a while before we finally made it down to the timeshare to meet up with Nana, Papa, and the kids. We had breakfast on the way down so that made us later than we thought we might be. The day was NOT pretty at all. Usually we would go to Old Towne and walk around looking in the stores before having lunch but we elected instead to head over to the clubhouse area of the timeshare to check out everything they had. We ended up stopping in at the kids' club area. It wasn't too exciting, but did have miniature ping pong so that kept Nana and Steven busy a while. Not the kids... the adults. Then we went over to the arcade. Nana and Papa got a few dollars on a card to use and the kids ran around like crazy choosing games to play. They ended up winning tickets on most of the games so by the time they finished, we were able to cash some of their tickets in for prizes (which didn't last long because they were cheap but made them happy while they lasted). Then we went to the restaurant next to the pool for lunch. Side note: There were people swimming. On an ugly, overcast, chilly day. I guess whatever works for you. Lunch was pretty good and then we went back to the room for a while and just hung out watching people golf as their unit backed up to a hole on the golf course. Before we knew it, it was time to head back to our house. We had plans to watch the War on I4 game and have leftovers for dinner. Little did we know that we would spend the next 3 or so hours having near heart attacks as we watched UCF and USF fight tooth and nail. It all came down to the last minute or so of game play. And it was crazy! I think all of us might have needed to chew a baby aspirin after the game to help with our heart problems. There was a lot of yelling and in the end, UCF pulled out a crazy win. They remained undefeated for another game. Some games stick with you for quite some time and I think this will be one of those games. My parents took the kids back to the timeshare that night to stay with them one more time and Steven and I took a walk and then went to bed in preparation for our big day the next day.
Saturday was a fun day for Steven and me. It is a tradition in our house that the kids stay with Nana and Papa on Saturday while Steven and I get to be Santa's elves and get all of our Christmas shopping done for the kiddos at one time. We plan weeks in advance (and even order a few things along the way that we find on sales) and set out with a plan in mind. This year was no different. I think we went pretty fast this year too. I'm not sure if it was because we had more of an idea of what we wanted or if we just moved quickly. But we got it all done and even checked off a few extra people on our list while we were out looking for the kids' gifts. Then came the not as fun job of hiding everything. We have some pretty serious hiding places though that I will never give up. =) Once we had everything done, we headed back down to my parents' timeshare for dinner. We made it there a bit before we had to leave for dinner so we went outside to see the sandhill cranes. We joke that the cranes just follow my mom around as they seem to love her. They came right up to us. We had an easy dinner at Ale House before we decided to take Nana and Papa over to see the Lights on Jeater Bend. I've mentioned them before on this blog as I have talked about our advent activities as this is something we try to see every year but it seriously never disappoints. I think it gets better every year. If anyone is interested, check out the episodes of The Great Christmas Light Fight from 2015 and find the episode with the houses in Celebration, FL. That's the group we go see. Though I think their setup has definitely grown in the last two years. The kids' favorite part is probably the "snow" that falls from random houses. We spent a bit of time down there walking up and down the street before we had to head back to the timeshare and ultimately back home for the night. We brought the kids with us this time because Nana and Papa were set to check out the next morning and we don't want them to have to wrangle kids at the same time.
Sunday was pretty normal. Church (which Nana and Papa came to), watching the Dolphins lose (it's been a sad year), a few errands, and not a whole lot else. One fun thing that we did do though was test out the new fire pit. We invited over the neighbors and sat around burning random sticks from the yard and roasting marshmallows. We didn't do full on smores, but we definitely have plans for that. We do a progressive dinner with our neighbors yearly (at least for the last two years) and this year we should likely do dessert since that is the course we have yet to do. We have plans already for hot chocolate and smores that night. The fire pit was awesome and we are super excited to continue to use it.
Finally it was time for bed for the kids and a little bit of The Walking Dead for us. It was a super fun week though I have to admit that I am sort of ready to get back into the swing of things. I'm not looking forward to Steven returning to work necessarily, though sending the kids back to school sounds super fun, but I am looking forward to having our routine back. We have a ton going on in the coming weeks. I hope to blog our advent activities as we do them each week so we will see if I can keep up with that.
We hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving and a fun weekend. =)
On Saturday we laid low for the most part. I met up with two of my college roommates and our honorary roommate and her little guy for lunch. One of the roommates is moving to North Carolina soon so we wanted to get together before she goes. It was a nice lunch. Steven was still feeling pretty rough so I didn't stay out too long. Otherwise, we didn't do anything too much. Our weekend was definitely the calm before the craziness that is the week of Thanksgiving. On Sunday we started our morning at church. Always a great way to start the day. We had to be there a bit early as we had worship rehearsal. Steven still does the tech and I have started singing with the worship team sometimes. The kids played around in the sanctuary while we had rehearsal and then we took them to their classes. Once church was over, we decided to go to Steak n Shake for lunch and then run an errand. The craziest part was when we got home, Will asked me to make him lunch. Um... yeah, so we just had that. And he felt he needed another one. This has been going on a lot lately. Maybe he is growing again. I do know that his pj pants from last year are all about 2 inches too short whereas they were almost too long last year. Haha! We didn't do too much for the rest of the day but did manage to get some yard work taken care of. On Monday Kenzie actually had school. This was the hurricane makeup day. It did let us get some things done though while she was in school. Then, once she got home we ran a few more errands before she had dance. While Steven took Kenzie to dance, I took Will to trivia with a bunch of our framily from church. It was fun. Unfortunately, with Kenzie's dance class being so late, they weren't able to meet us out there.
Tuesday we decided to to go Animal Kingdom. We figured this would be the least crowded of the Disney parks during Thanksgiving. Unforunately, Steven took a bit of a turn for the worse. He wasn't feeling well at all. He stuck it out though for a long time. We got to AK almost as soon as it opened and went straight for the safari. We were able to get right on without a FastPass since it was early. Also, since it was so early, a lot of the animals were pretty active. It was a good ride around the safari. We then went over to Dinoland. On the way there we decided to stop and visit Pocahontas. We have never actually met her. It was a sort of long wait, but it was fun. The kids were pretty excited with her. We then stopped at the Dino play area. We have never actually done this because it is often closed when we wander by. The kids LOVED it. Both of them braved the huge slide in the middle. The thing must have been 3-4 stories high. I admit... I went down it too. I was at the top with them while Steven was at the bottom. Why take the stairs when I could take the slide? Finally, after watching them run around in circles and slide down slide after slide, we dragged them out of there so we could make our FP for the Nemo musical. We sat in the bubble zone again and the show was as great as it always is. We were also seated just in front of the interpreters doing ASL. It was pretty interesting. Then it was time for lunch. We brought our lunch but found a spot to sit at the pizza place. By the time we finished lunch Steven was feeling pretty bad and it had started raining. We actually had FP for the boat ride in Pandora which we have never done so we were still debating trying to do that. We walked into Pandora to look around (and it was pretty cool) but we had quite some time left before our FP and the rain was getting pretty steady so we decided to cut our losses and head out without doing the boat ride ( or the Lion King show which we had even later FP for). That is a major plus to being a passholder. We can go back (almost) anytime. Also, this was our first time doing Disney with absolutely no stroller (other than one quick jaunt at Hollywood Studios). Both kids did awesome! I hit my 10,000 step goal before we left the park so I would love to know how many steps the kids each took since their little legs are even shorter. I ended up driving home and when we got home Steven turned back around to head out to urgent care. Turns out, he had bronchitis and an ear infection. We got him hooked up with some meds and by the end of the night he was feeling slightly better. At least he was able to function without as much pain. I ended up taking the kids to Taco Bell for dinner without him so he could rest. Then the kids sat down to watch a movie before bed.
Wednesday we basically just hung around the house getting ready for Thanksgiving. We had a lot of cleaning and food prep to do. We did story time at the library which both kids love and Kenzie rarely gets to do anymore. We also ended up going to Lowes at one point and finding a fire pit on sale (which was technically a Black Friday sale but since the sign was already up, they honored the awesome price) which we couldn't leave in the store for the price it was listed at. We have wanted one for years so we were super excited to get started using it. We met my parents for dinner at Tijuana Flats as they were driving through town on the way to their timeshare for the weekend. The kids would have loved to have gone to their timeshare right that moment with them but we didn't want to send them down when we knew my parents had to check in and everything. After that I had to head out to a Girl Scout leader meeting. We had the ever popular cookie training. My co-leader and I both wanted to be there since this will be our first time doing this. It is sort of overwhelming, but I think we are going to be just fine. Plus, they said Daisies sell cookies really easily because they are so adorable. Works for me. This is what will fund whatever we want to work towards as a large goal for the year as well as hopefully some things next year as the girls continue on in our troop. Bonus: They gave each of us a box of the s'mores cookies for being there.
Thursday was the day. The big turkey day. Steven got up early to head out to the turkey trot he signed up for. He did really well. Especially when you take into account that two days earlier, he could barely function. He finished in just over 37 minutes so he was pretty happy with that. He said he had a lot of trouble breathing which was likely the bronchitis. I got up about the time he left and got to work. The turkey had to be in pretty early. Usually my mom is able to help with it, but my parents weren't at my house in time so this ended up being my first year flying entirely solo prepping the turkey and stuffing. Everyone was at the house in time to watch some of the parade and football. We had our normal appetizers as lunch just to hold everyone over until "dinner time". We function by the southern clock for Thanksgiving dinner. Dinner is about 3pm. We were right on time this year. Often, I am running almost 30 minutes late but I think we had everything on the table just in time. Also, my turkey was awesome! It turned out great. As did everything else (most of which wasn't made by yours truly). We also prescribe to the Southern style casseroles. Our sweet potato casserole can rot your teeth and we use cheese and bacon in the green bean casserole. I know everyone believes their Thanksgiving foods are the best and I have to say I would say the same about ours. Haha! We had yummy desserts once dinner was done before everyone had to head out. My parents took the kids with them to the timeshare for the night which was nice because Steven and I were able to hang out alone and in silence. Haha! Honestly, the kids were so excited that I think if they knew how to drive, they would have been at the timeshare much earlier than they made it.
Friday we got up "late". It was 7am, but for us that is sort of late. We didn't rush around to get out of the house and it was a while before we finally made it down to the timeshare to meet up with Nana, Papa, and the kids. We had breakfast on the way down so that made us later than we thought we might be. The day was NOT pretty at all. Usually we would go to Old Towne and walk around looking in the stores before having lunch but we elected instead to head over to the clubhouse area of the timeshare to check out everything they had. We ended up stopping in at the kids' club area. It wasn't too exciting, but did have miniature ping pong so that kept Nana and Steven busy a while. Not the kids... the adults. Then we went over to the arcade. Nana and Papa got a few dollars on a card to use and the kids ran around like crazy choosing games to play. They ended up winning tickets on most of the games so by the time they finished, we were able to cash some of their tickets in for prizes (which didn't last long because they were cheap but made them happy while they lasted). Then we went to the restaurant next to the pool for lunch. Side note: There were people swimming. On an ugly, overcast, chilly day. I guess whatever works for you. Lunch was pretty good and then we went back to the room for a while and just hung out watching people golf as their unit backed up to a hole on the golf course. Before we knew it, it was time to head back to our house. We had plans to watch the War on I4 game and have leftovers for dinner. Little did we know that we would spend the next 3 or so hours having near heart attacks as we watched UCF and USF fight tooth and nail. It all came down to the last minute or so of game play. And it was crazy! I think all of us might have needed to chew a baby aspirin after the game to help with our heart problems. There was a lot of yelling and in the end, UCF pulled out a crazy win. They remained undefeated for another game. Some games stick with you for quite some time and I think this will be one of those games. My parents took the kids back to the timeshare that night to stay with them one more time and Steven and I took a walk and then went to bed in preparation for our big day the next day.
Saturday was a fun day for Steven and me. It is a tradition in our house that the kids stay with Nana and Papa on Saturday while Steven and I get to be Santa's elves and get all of our Christmas shopping done for the kiddos at one time. We plan weeks in advance (and even order a few things along the way that we find on sales) and set out with a plan in mind. This year was no different. I think we went pretty fast this year too. I'm not sure if it was because we had more of an idea of what we wanted or if we just moved quickly. But we got it all done and even checked off a few extra people on our list while we were out looking for the kids' gifts. Then came the not as fun job of hiding everything. We have some pretty serious hiding places though that I will never give up. =) Once we had everything done, we headed back down to my parents' timeshare for dinner. We made it there a bit before we had to leave for dinner so we went outside to see the sandhill cranes. We joke that the cranes just follow my mom around as they seem to love her. They came right up to us. We had an easy dinner at Ale House before we decided to take Nana and Papa over to see the Lights on Jeater Bend. I've mentioned them before on this blog as I have talked about our advent activities as this is something we try to see every year but it seriously never disappoints. I think it gets better every year. If anyone is interested, check out the episodes of The Great Christmas Light Fight from 2015 and find the episode with the houses in Celebration, FL. That's the group we go see. Though I think their setup has definitely grown in the last two years. The kids' favorite part is probably the "snow" that falls from random houses. We spent a bit of time down there walking up and down the street before we had to head back to the timeshare and ultimately back home for the night. We brought the kids with us this time because Nana and Papa were set to check out the next morning and we don't want them to have to wrangle kids at the same time.
Sunday was pretty normal. Church (which Nana and Papa came to), watching the Dolphins lose (it's been a sad year), a few errands, and not a whole lot else. One fun thing that we did do though was test out the new fire pit. We invited over the neighbors and sat around burning random sticks from the yard and roasting marshmallows. We didn't do full on smores, but we definitely have plans for that. We do a progressive dinner with our neighbors yearly (at least for the last two years) and this year we should likely do dessert since that is the course we have yet to do. We have plans already for hot chocolate and smores that night. The fire pit was awesome and we are super excited to continue to use it.
Finally it was time for bed for the kids and a little bit of The Walking Dead for us. It was a super fun week though I have to admit that I am sort of ready to get back into the swing of things. I'm not looking forward to Steven returning to work necessarily, though sending the kids back to school sounds super fun, but I am looking forward to having our routine back. We have a ton going on in the coming weeks. I hope to blog our advent activities as we do them each week so we will see if I can keep up with that.
We hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving and a fun weekend. =)
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