This and That

For Grant's date this weekend, we went on a mini camping trip. We set up tent in the back of our car. Then we drove to a secluded road (the end of our road) and had dinner. We read a Reader's Digest and talked. It was a lot of fun.

 Here is the first snowman of the year: Mud

 Our daily nap time together!

Trimming Scout

Karmin LOVES animals! For her personal progress goal she had to interview someone in a field that she was interested in working in. She decided she wanted to interview a vet because she thought that would be a good job to have. However in talking to the vet she realized that is not exactly what she wants to do. She doesn't want to take care of all of the blood and gore, she just wants to love on animals! A different career choice is in the works. Well, today she had the opportunity to help give a family friend's dog, Scout, a haircut. She was so excited at this opportunity and had so much fun!

Thanksgiving 2018

This Thanksgiving was unlike any that we have had in the past. We have had a bout of an awful virus that has been making its way through our family. On Monday I bought a ham just in case we weren't able to go to the cabin. It came in handy as we still had two that were not feeling well. It was our first Thanksgiving with just our family. I learned that many hands do make light work. I started cooking at 9:30 in the morning and finished at 5:40 (dinner was 10 minutes late!). I'm thankful that normally we do get to have Thanksgiving with family so that we can all pitch in and help with the dinner. Although, I do love to cook when I don't have anything else pressing--so it was actually a very fulfilling day.
Gretchen and I always take a picture together at the cabin on Thanksgiving. But Gretch wasn't able to go up to the cabin either because they are in the process of building a new house. So we did a little doctoring of pictures so that we could have our picture together.
Everyone was feeling better so we were able to follow through with having Grant's family over to our house for a Thanksgiving lunch. It was a lot of fun. I enjoyed that we were able to fit almost 30 people very comfortably in our home.
We didn't get many pictures this weekend, but it still was enjoyable.

Lucy Time

With this illness that is going around our home, Lucy is starting to go a little stir crazy. She just wants to go play at her friend's house, but alas she has germs! So I've been trying to get her out as much as possible. One day we went on a bike ride. Today she was feeling so well that I took her to McDonalds. She enjoyed getting out for a little bit!

Deck the Halls

In October of 2000, Grant and I went to Walmart and we splurged and bought a $30 Christmas tree for our tiny apartment. Our 5' tree has been a part of our family for all of these years mostly standing tall, and sometimes leaning. Our diligent tree survived a few crashes, a few hits from balls, and various run-ins. Over the years we have jimmy-rigged a new stand to try to help it to stand straight once again. But as much as we loved our tree, we knew that it would not survive 2 moves last year.

We went back and forth about getting a real tree or an artificial tree, and finally decided an artificial one would be best since we like to decorate so early in the year. I personally think we found the perfect tree.

Using the same amount of ornaments our old tree was full to the brim, but this one is a little sparse. Also, getting the star on the top was a bit trickier. Lydia's name was drawn this year to put the star up. It all turned out well. I love decorating our sweet home.

This and That

Here are just a few pictures of things we have been doing...

Grant and I went on a date....Grant was in charge and so we ended up eating at a new restaurant and we did some Christmas shopping. 

 We took the girls to the book fair at Lydia's school...

 Enjoying these new sunsets that we see...

 Ben had an appointment out at Grant's new office. So Grant gave him a tour, which apparently included a trip out on the roof.

 Ben is fun to climb on..

 I think they have the same smile...

Biking

I love getting pictures of Ben and his biking escapades...

Nativities

A few of our girls are not fans of us leaving to go out of town. So before we left, I had to plan something for them to look forward to when we got home. The Monday after we got home, there was no school for Veteran's Day. I've always wanted to have a nativity set that kids could play with. Over the years I have collected ideas on Pinterest and decided today would be the day that each girl could make their own nativity scene that could be played with and loved. I figured it would be a great way to spend some time with them after just having been gone for 4 days, they would get to craft, and I would also check off my bucket list of making a nativity scene.

So early this morning, we headed to the store and bought the supplies. And then we worked on them. All. Day. Long. I thought it would take us about 2 hours to make. But alas, they were way more expensive than I had anticipated, and it took us a lot longer to put together than I thought. However they turned out so cute! I was amazed at the talent that the girls have. Each nativity scene has its own unique flair. Even though it ended up being a much bigger project than I anticipated, it was worth every penny and minute!

I guess I didn't get a picture of Lu's. Just imagine one of the stables painted all red, and all of the people inside painted all red with a splash of blue and the was Lucy's. 

Nashville!!

The stars aligned for this trip. There was a convention down in Nashville that Grant had to go to for work. It didn't take much convincing for me to go along for this trip. Three days to spend with my best friend in the whole world was not a hard decision.

Grant had classes Thursday, Friday, and Saturday. So while he was at classes, I hung out with Heather. Then in the evening the four of us would hang out. It was just like old times. How I miss it! I miss Todd and Heather like crazy, and am now counting the days until they come back home. 370 days until graduation! This trip was good for my soul!

Headed back home...

 Date Night!!....

 The view from our hotel. Apparently that AT&T building there is famous. But I think it looks a little silly. Like it has horns.

 It was a very cold night going to see the Parthenon in the dark.

 How perfect are we together? We were both wearing blue striped shirts when we saw each other on the first day.

 Grant and I hung out together by ourselves on Wednesday night after we flew in. We went out to eat at a great barbecue place and then walked down to Broadway. We walked up one side of the street, walked back down the other side, and then headed home. Glad we saw it, but it was totally not our thing.

This was such a fun trip! It was a huge blessing that we got to go there.