Thanksgiving 2017

 Here it is, almost Christmas, and I'm just now posting about Thanksgiving!  Where has the time gone?!

As per tradition we made our way south to Sedona for the holiday, and we were welcomed with temperatures in the upper 70's/80's!!  It was amazing!

Some highlights include:

Hot tubbing at Grandparents' house.

Lots of mountain biking!

This marked the first time I had mountain biked since the last Thanksgiving!

Surprisingly, I felt pretty darn good!

Piper and Morgan joined us a few times too!

Hit up Talaquepaque.

The girls coloring on a quiet morning.

We enjoyed an outing to the V Bar V Heritage Site.

This included the largest and best preserved petroglyph site in the Verde Valley!

Absolutely fascinating!

Explored around the nearby creek.

The kids with Grandma and Grandpa.

Our last evening we sat around the fire pit and roasted s'mores!

And somewhere in there we had a feast...which I seemed to have neglected to take photos of.

Such a lovely visit!

Until next year!

Thanksgiving Break Part II

Well, I kinda dropped the ball with blogging about the second half of our Thanksgiving break.

Yes, I know Thanksgiving was over a month ago.

But, I've said it before and I'll say it again...better late than never.

A trip to Sedona is never complete without some mountain biking!

This year, all the girls got a chance to give it a go at least once...except for Rory, but we'll get her out there next year!

For Thanksgiving the girls made little ornaments for everyone's place setting...a nice touch.

Always after we feast we take a walk around the neighborhood and then feast again on dessert.

Haley held my hand.  I know these days are limited that she'll hold her mom's hand, so I'm glad it was documented!

We ended the week at Talaqapaque to feed the ducks.

We were lucky the weather was so nice for the entire visit!

And luckily, no snow on the drive home!

Win!

Thanksgiving Break Part I

I know we're inching up to Christmas already (how is that possible?!) but I need to post about our Thanksgiving break!

As always, we set out for Sedona!

 Road trip!

 It was raining when we left, and it wasn't long before we hit snow.

For the entire drive it was either raining or white knuckle driving in the snow.  Two different occasions cars slid out coming the opposite direction nearly hitting us.  White knuckle indeed!

Luckily, we made it safely.

One of the biggest hits of the week was going to "Out of Africa", a wildlife preserve only about 30 minutes away from Sedona.  Here they have an assortment of African animals as well as some Northern American animals (wolves and bears and such).  One of the attractions is taking a bus ride to feed the giraffes...the girls loved it!

 We walked all over the park seeing all different kinda of animals.

Another hit were the tigers...and we each got to feed them!

So yeah, the trip started off with a bang for sure!

More to come on the rest of the week!

Our Weekend Away

Months ago Ryan and I planned a little weekend getaway to see a friends wedding.  When we got the okay from my parents and my brother and his wife to watch our kids for us we booked the trip.  We decided it was best to divide our kids up...Haley and Piper stayed with my brother's family, and Morgan and Rory stayed with my parents.  We left Friday morning after the kids went to school.  This is the first time we have been away from our kids for a whole weekend together!!  Two nights...three days!!!  I would be lying if I said I wasn't nervous though...and I thought about them A LOT!  Always wondering what everyone was up to.  But the girls did really well (although I think my brother and his wife got very little sleep).  My brother referred to the weekend as a kid's birthday party that never ended.  He has a little five year old of his own, so with my girls added on it can get a little louder than they're probably used to.  I'm extremely grateful to them though.  

Anyway, back to the wedding.  We flew to Phoenix and stayed at the Arizona Biltmore where the wedding was to be held...a pretty big splurge for us to say the least.  

We went to lunch as soon as we arrived Friday afternoon and then went for a little jog along a path right next to the resort.  That evening we got ourselves cleaned up for the cocktail party to meet up with everyone.

Saturday we enjoyed a very leisurely breakfast and then headed to the pool with the our friends.  Later, Ryan and I got dressed fully intending to go for another jog.  Yeah, that never happened for me.  One of my favorite things about the trip was our ability to just lounge around without a worry in the world.  Our conversations were never interrupted...we never felt rushed.  It was bliss.  So instead of jogging we sat on the patio and just enjoyed the wonderful weather...and people watched of course.

The wedding was in the late afternoon/evening.  It was a beautiful ceremony and they had an amazing reception.  Good food, lots of dancing and with fun people!

Sunday we didn't leave for the airport until 1:00, so we had another relaxing morning.  We said our goodbyes and then it was home again, home again.  We went from temps in the 70's to 28 degrees when our plan touched the ground.  What a shock!!  Although, we only have a week until we load up the trunk and head out again to Sedona, AZ for Thanksgiving!  So...I'm planning on nice weather then too.

Yay for weekend getaways!!
Happy Monday!