Thanksgiving Weekend

We are in town this year for Thanksgiving, which is a change from the past two years we have traveled to South Dakota to see Gary's mom. The temperatures were a little warmer in Memphis, at least until Sunday, but still very enjoyable.

My brother James, his wife Lydia and their boys, Blake and Drew (Anna and Caroline's same age partner-in-crime cousins) arrived on Wednesday afternoon. The girls could not wait. They instantly were having a great time playing and of course being as loud as possible.

Thursday was great with two wonderful meals at Mom's for lunch and Dad's for an early dinner. All the kids plus James and Lydia spent the night at Dad's. Bonus for Gary and me!! That just meant that both of us could go Black Friday shopping. Gary has never been before and honestly, I don't think he will go again. Mom and I landed at Target in Cordova at 11:45 for the midnight opening. After a long wait to get in the door, we managed to get all but one thing we went there for. Poor Gary was 0 for 3. Gary and I slept in on Friday and then met the kids at the park to enjoy the beautiful and unseasonably warm temps.

Friday night James, Lydia, Gary and I enjoyed a meal at Flight, in downtown Memphis. It was very, very good. I left with a full tummy and thoroughly enjoyed the time together. We so rarely get to do that with them since they live in Dallas. Before dinner we walked over to the Peabody which was all decorated for Christmas and enjoyed some time in the lobby before our reservation for dinner. The kids all spent the night with Mimi and Papa that night after going to see the Muppet Movie, which they loved.

Saturday was pretty calm...Iron Bowl, which Auburn played as expected (Oh, what a difference a year and a Heisman trophy winning QB will do for you!) and Baylor vs. Texas Tech which was great. We enjoyed yummy chili that Gary made for dinner at our house and the kids played their hearts out. They were sad to say goodbye to their cousins that night as they would be heading out on Sunday morning as we headed to church.

Great weekend. We are thinking of going to Dallas for MLK weekend. James will be installed as a deacon and we need to see their new (or not so new!!) house. We have so much to be thankful for in our family and very much felt the blessings this weekend. Glad we were home with so much family.

right before our big lunch!

james and lydia

caroline and her antics

the kids made up a play for thanksgiving...blake and anna read the script while drew and caroline did the motions

blake and drew

the older kids are swinging

astronomy lesson from grampa...they saw jupiter and neptune!

what are they plotting??

at the peabody before our fun dinner at flight

silly sisters....love caroline's label on her shirt...she gets one everytime she goes to my dad's house!!

Jr. K. Feast

Caroline's class enjoyed their feast on the Tuesday of Thanksgiving week. They feasted on yummy treats from Chick-fil-a plus lots of other good food brought by the parents. Gary and I were both able to join her for lunch and enjoyed their cute costumes and conversation. They were all ready for the long weekend ahead with friends and family!

love the hat and the necklace!

cute caroline (with a chicken nugget in her mouth!)

alec sneaked in the picture with evelyn, ava and caroline

Elementary Open House

Anna's school held Open House on Thursday night. We had tickets to the Chris Tomlin concert at Hope at 7pm, so got there right at 6pm to begin our tour. Anna's teacher had a whole page full of stuff for us to do/see/watch, etc. and it was great. Anna is learning so much and does so well in school. She enjoyed showing us her projects, including her book report video that was playing in the front of the room during open house. We enjoyed seeing the kids acting out their historical characters! Best part of the night was having to read a book and take an AR test. That was hilarious. Anna thought it was great that we got to see and do so much of what she experiences in a day at Harding.  Mrs. Fussell is doing great things with them in third grade!

Anna with Mrs. Fussell

Anna with her grandparents

Anna with second set of grandparents. She had a crowd!





Anna's family values shield. Made Gary and I very proud.

Anna's funny turkey story.

Gobble Wobble

Gary has been wanting to do a 5-k to "test" his training and see how much he has improved since he has been focusing on his running. Well, his training has definitely paid off seeing that he finished the Gobble Wobble 5k on Sunday in 20:34. That was a personal best for him and showed him how well he can do. Was amazed at his ability to improve and to look like he was not even sweating as he crossed the finish line.

Anna did the 1/2 mile kid fun run. She decided she should have done the 5k and probably will do one in the near future. She just has not been running much lately.

Hung out with my friend Rachel and her 3 kids entertained my 2 kids during the race. Rachel was cheering on her 3 neices who have all turned into great runners. We could not believe one of the kids did not fall in the pond as they were inching closer to it. The kids enjoyed the rock wall and the slide and the bounce house afterwards.

Besides the very strong winds, it was great weather and a great race for Gary!

giving daddy a hug at the 5k start

anna, laura beth and caroline with the turkey

strong finish for z-man

anna looking good

anna and the rock wall

Soccer Season

We wrapped up another soccer season this weekend with Caroline. Gary coached along with John Zanella, Maryn's dad. We found out with 1 week to go before games started that we were actually in the older league with goalies. The kids loved being able to be goalie, just not when they would get scored on by the other teams!! We had a relatively young team with several turning 5 during the season. On the other hand, several teams had 6 year old boys playing our young 5 year old girls!! We had a superstar on our team in Tanner and we hung in there with small things to cheer about. The kids had a great time and John and Gary were very patient. Caroline says she has retired from soccer, but she said that last spring and then wanted to sign up again when registration opened. We'll see what she says for the spring!!

Caroline proudly sporting her medal after the last game.

Coach John with Caroline and Coach Gary with Maryn

Dress up days

Red ribbon week was full of dress up opportunities for Anna....here is the final day...dress like a rock star.

Same day Caroline had Pumpkin Patch at school and they are supposed to dress like farmers....Caroline did not like that idea but we managed to get her in the overalls. After school she asked if she ever had to wear those again!!

Halloween

With Halloween landing on a school night, there was not a lot of time to run around and trick or treat everywhere. We stayed pretty local. Trick or treated around the neighborhood. The weekend before we did take in the Hope Fall Festival with my sister Jennifer and her family. The girls loved having their cousins in town. Anna was a disco diva (one more year out of those white boots!), Caroline was an angel and Gary dressed up like Andy Wise, an investigative reporter on the local news channel. Andy actually goes to church with us and is an Auburn alumni, so just poking a little fun. No costume for me this year....call me a dud!!

The weekend before Halloween we also went out to complete the Corn Maze which is set up near the AgriCenter. We had never done a long maze before and we were doing it at night, which made it a bit tougher. We met our friends Zack and Lauren as well as Kenny and it was a lot of fun. It took us about an hour to complete. We only ventured off the path a few times. Aftewards the girls wanted to do the "corn cannon" that is an airgun shooting corn cobs at a target. Caroline was the only one that hit the Memphis Grizzlies target and she scored a headband. She loved it, even slept in it that night! Very fun times.

The girls are ready to trick or treat

the zyrieks

the girls with tom, our UPS driver! he is a friend of ours and we told him he had a very believable costume. the girls wanted to take their picture with him, which was hilarious. he was a great sport.

andy wise and me....such serious look!

anna and caroline with madeline, estella and henry at the hope fall fest

ready for the corn maze

photo op before entering the maze

zack and caroline, sporting her headband, making crazy faces at the end of the night!