Early November brought a really fun reunion with my (Steph's) friends from high school. We get together every two years or so and have a relaxing, no-kids weekend! There is something so refreshing about being with people that you have such history with! While we may not talk as often as we'd like and we're spread out all over the world, there is such refreshment in getting together and hearing each others lives, making each other laugh, and sharing each others hurts. I love it! This year we were fortunate enough to go to a cabin near Heber, AZ. There were seven of us that were able to attend this year- representing 20 kids! There were lots of funny stories, a ton to catch up on, junk food to consume, cheesy movies to watch, naps to take... does it get any better??!! Who wouldn't want to spend a weekend with these awesome women??
With the start of the holiday season, I've been working a crazy amount of hours. Jeff's been crazy busy at school- he's revamping a physics unit for his team of teachers that teach the freshman science class... yikes. This team teaching stuff bring out Jeff's perfectionistic side! So, we didn't really see much of each other for a while.Then, Adam and Stacey came for Thanksgiving!!! YEAH!!! It was so awesome to have family around on our first holiday away from Indiana! Avery loves Uncle Adam and Auntie Stacey, so it was a great week! We didn't do too much that was exciting. We had one nice day early in the week and I took Stacey on my favorite bike ride. The got to see Avery at tumbling class! Avery enjoyed showing off all of her skills for Daddy and Stacey! Then it got really cold and snowed- which Adam loved- sometimes he's a little crazy like that. I'll say, for a bunch of rookies in the Thanksgiving dinner preparation area, our dinner came out pretty good! Not too much of it was from scratch or anything, but everything was relatively hot at the same time, nothing was too burned- pretty impressive!
I worked at 6 am on Black Friday- yikes!!! Then, we went and bought our Christmas tree!!! We watched Christmas movies, decorated our tree, and put presents under it for "Christmas morning". Yup, that's right, the Bouse's and the Smith's did Christmas morning on Saturday morning! It was soo fun to see how excited Avery was! Grandma and Grandpa Smith sent some gifts for Avery with the Bouse's, so she got lots of fun stuff!
Here's the sign of a good Christmas... Avery is wearing her new dress-up dress, playing with her new cash register! Doesn't get any better!
She's finally gotten the idea of naming her toys something other than their title- her stuffed cat is 'kitty cat', stuffed Bambi is 'Bambi'. But, she got a new stuffed puppy and the above seen penguin- they are now Erin the puppy, Bob the penguin, and a Christmas decoration she found is Jo the Moose! So fun!
Merry Christmas!!!
Sounds like a hectic (and fun) time!
Thanks for posting! Steph, I love how there are, like, 3 times more exclamation points than periods in this entry. Bob and I just finished "24 Girls in 7 Days" by Alex Bradley, and I'm convinced you should read it; it's hilarious!
Short story for you and Jeff: Bob and I are eating Thanksgiving dinner with the Thompson fam, and I have my hand on the inside of Bob's upper arm. Barbara is talking about something and says, "What do you think, Ron?" And Ron says, "I'm sorry, I didn't hear you. I was too busy observing Sarah massage Bob's large bicep." (or something very similar to this) Everyone laughed a little awkwardly and I jerked my hand back under the table embarassedly. Bob says his dad teases me cuz he likes me...I hope this is true. :o) Happy holidays!
I enjoyed Sarahs comment as much as I enjoyed the post!
Sorry Sarah I know the comment was addressed to Jeff and Steph but I couldnt resist reading it.