Thanksgiving 2021

 Hope you all had a great holiday weekend with family, good food, relaxing and maybe some online shopping too!  I am thankful to say I am 99% done with Christmas shopping.  I hope to do some wrapping next week while watching Christmas movies.  There are so many this year, not only on Hallmark, but Lifetime, Netflix and other outlets have them too.  It's hard to keep up with them all!

It was so nice to have a few days off from work and to have our college daughter home.  Here are some highlights from the holiday weekend.....

It all started with a parade....an annual tradition since I was a kid.

My appetizer plate for our family gathering

Time with all my greats!  

My dad has a piano, so the kids always love to play with it.  My dad played the organ at my childhood church, then went on to play the piano at another church and now plays for fun at home.

Family picture with all 4 of us!

I went to just 2 stores Friday and did the rest of my shopping online.  My girls went out shopping though with friends while my husband and I went to a local home show.  It is fun to see these million dollar homes! Here are a few favorite pictures from those...

I liked how the backsplash went up halfway on the wall with a shelf above it.  This kitchen still had plenty of storage in other places for dishes. 

This was a vertical pull out drying rack.

Bookcase built in the wall in the upstairs hallway

This was our favorite house!

I liked this back porch, except it had 9 doors plus sliding doors to access it.  I am not big fan of tons of exterior doors to a house.

After the home show, we went as a family to see the movie Encanto.  This movie is based on a family that lives in Colombia, so it was special to us since we lived there for 3 years.  We all really liked it and it was fun to see all the Colombian touches.  In one scene, they were eating soup out of traditional soup bowls which I bought there and we use here.

Saturday was spent catching up on things, Sunday was church, family lunch out followed by a game of pickleball and here we are at Monday.

Enjoy your day back into regular routine of life.

Linking up with Heather.

What's Up Wednesday ~ November 2021

Here we are at the end of my favorite month!  It is time to wrap up and head into December, so here is this month's edition of What's Up Wednesday.  

Wishing you all a very Happy Thanksgiving.  I am thankful for anyone who reads along on my weekly posts.

What we're eating this week..............

This is a hard week to predict what we will be eating.  Other than the Thanksgiving meal on Thursday, I don't have any meals planned, other than eating out at our favorite Mexican restaurant and pizza restaurant.

However, I did actually cook 4 times last week, so here are some meals I cooked last week:

Chicken Fajita Bake - I served this over rice with chips

Grilled chicken and Mix and Match Mama's pumpkin pasta

Poppy Seed Chicken with carrots and green beans

BBQ Chicken sheet tray with veggies

What I'm reminiscing about..........

I celebrated my birthday this month.  Thankful for 51 years of life!  My husband and daughter decorated the kitchen based from an episode of The Office.

My parents with me at our lunch date.  

What I'm loving............

I have been loving all the fall colors!  These pictures were all taken in my neighborhood.

What we've been up to...........

It has been a busy season at work with Christmas and end of the year budget spending.  It is rewarding to give back to the hospital community.  My daughter helped last week by assembling 400 cookies we ordered to deliver to staff at the local children's hospital. 

What I'm dreading...........

Just one thing coming up in December, but trusting the Lord will see me through.

What I'm working on..............

Christmas decorating!  It all started with a candle. I decorated our home last week, with the exception of decorating our tree.  I like to put up our tree right after my birthday, but will wait until Thanksgiving to decorate it.  My youngest helped me put out exterior lights last weekend.  I will share pictures on a later post.

What I'm excited about................

My college girl came home last night!  The 4 of us haven't been at home together since July, so I am looking forward to this holiday week/weekend.

What I'm watching/reading.............

Last week, Tanya mentioned a daily Thanksgiving devotion by Paul Tripp & it has been such a good reading plan on the Bible app. I even wrote a verse from one day on my mirror in my bedroom which was a good reminder for me.

I am also watching The Voice, Hallmark movies (I really enjoyed Next Stop Christmas!) and this week will watch the Macy's Thanksgiving Parade!

What I'm listening to..............

I am listening to Christmas music!!  My favorite is the Gwen Stefani Christmas album, so listen to that one if you haven't already.  I am also listening to some favorite podcasts....a few regulars and a few new ones:

Jesus Over Everything by Lisa Whittle

The Big Boo Cast

Office Ladies

Something to Celebrate

The Bestie Breakdown

The Open Door Sisterhood

Don't Mom Alone

The Naked Marriage

What I'm wearing...............

I go into the office two days a week.  I wear a dress one day usually and days I do drop-offs at the hospital, I wear pants with a long sleeve shirt or sweater.

I did purchase a new sweater for my birthday.

What I'm doing this weekend..............

Honsestly, no plans, and I'm not mad about it,  but I do have plenty of little clean up projects to do at home.

What I'm looking forward to next month............

Like most of us, I am looking forward to all things Christmas!  The music, movies, food, decorations, and time with family.  Thankfully, 90% of my Christmas shopping is done!

What else is new............

When we moved in our house almost 5 years ago, there was carpet on the stairs.  Over that time, they have become stained with spills of coffee and just worn.  Last week, as a birthday gift, we had the carpet removed and stained wood put on them and it looks so much better!

May you find space and time to be thankful this week and let that override all the hardships in this life.  

 

Tuesday Talk ~ Camping

 Any campers out there?  I am talking today about camping and recapping my weekend at the same time.  Any guesses to what I did last weekend?  

A little backstory to my camping experience.....as a child, we had a pull behind camper and took a few long vacations.  I particularly remember a trip we took out west for a few weeks.  We also took a trip to the northeast another summer.  Fast forward to I married Avery and he loves camping...tent camping.  I admit, I had never tent camped before meeting him.  We went tent camping and he has taken our girls tent camping too.  I even went tent camping once during each of my pregnancies!  When our youngest was about 2, we bought a travel trailer.  It was perfect for our little family.  We had a little kitchen with a cooktop, sink and microwave.  We had a queen size bed and the girls had bunk beds.  We also had a shower and toilet, so it had all the necessesities we needed (including heat and air).  We got rid of it right before we moved to South America. Most of my old camping pictures are cropped in a scrapbook, but here are a few random pictures from our camper days when the girls were little....

One of my favorites....Brook reading Avery's bible and her bible study art work on the wall :).

The girls with playdough at the kitchen table.

We loved taking friends with us and this was a friend who went camping with us and there was apparently a dance party outside this night, ha!  I posted this because this is the only that shows some of our camper from the outside in the background of this photo.  

Since that time, I haven't camped....until this past weekend.  We have a Sprinter van that is used for work and would like to convert this at some point in the future to a camper van.  In the meantime, my husband had done a few modifications so we can sleep in it.  That brings us to the weekend.  My youngest daughter had a retreat with church, so my husband and I found this place, just 2 hours from home, to camp.

So we camped, just like the old SNL skit says, ".....in a van, down by the river."  We found some places to eat dinner, so we didn't cook outside, except for our breakfast.  It was quite a cold weekend, but we survived.

Dinner view Saturday night

Hope you all have a great day!

Friday Favorites ~ November 12, 2021 / Birthday Edition

Happy Friday friends!  The week has gone by fast for me with it being birthday week!  Today I am sharing some favorites from the week and my birthday yesterday.

I love how the day before my birthday it seems like I turned the corner on the street in our neighborhood and the fall colors just popped.  I have loved seeing all the fall colors the past few days in our city!

I am a fan of The Office, so that inspired the decor for my birthday.  My husband had the sign made and he and my daughter decorated for me after I had gone to bed Wednesday night.

This is what I woke up to Thursday morning to celebrate my birthday!

My youngest was out of school, so she and I did a little birthday shopping at Kendra Scott, Sephora and Altar'd State....getting all the birthday goodies!  The two places I had in mind to eat were closed, so I regrouped and still managed to eat well.  My parents met us for lunch at a Mexican restaurant.

I went by Starbucks for my free drink and then picked up a piece of cheesecake for dessert at a local shop.

I came home and found a bouquet of flowers from a sweet friend out of town.

Earlier in the week, I had dinner with my big sister.  She lives about 45 minutes aways, but we don't get to see each other very often, so it was a fun night.

I also had lunch with a friend on my birthday eve.

In addition to time with family and friends celebrating with good food, I was able to Facetime with my oldest daughter, spoke on the phone with a good friend from Colombia, received messages from my dear friends in Australia, Belgium and then Facebook messages from many others.  This communication these days makes a person feel loved.  We all need a day like that and I am thankful.

I treated myself to a new vacuum. This is adulting.  I am quite excited and it is fun to have a birthday that comes at a time with lots of sales :).

I am thankful for another year of life, blog friends who read this and also thankful for all the Veterans who were also honored yesterday.  

Enjoy your weekend!