Thanksgiving/Christmas Decorating

We had a great Thanksgiving weekend! The academy gave me Thursday night off and all day Saturday as well. This will be the longest break given until I graduate in July. We were able to decorate the inside and outside of the house for Christmas. Stacie our former nanny came over to help out. The boys miss her very much and we are sad to see her leave for Michigan in a few weeks. This is where she is from and she will finish up her degree there.

The boys had a great time helping out. No one wanted to help daddy outside, however.

We bought a little tree that the boys decorated upstairs. This will be the tree that they will be able to decorate with the ornaments that they make at school.

This was a tradition in Laurel's family.

For Thanksgiving, we drove to Mesa and brought Laurel's parents over. They were delighted to visit our house, see the decorations and for the Thanksgiving Feast. With two round trips equaling close to 5 hours and cooking the dinner, it was a bit exhausting, but enjoyable. With both her parents 90 years old, we see them slipping pretty fast so we try to make the most out of our time with them.

Christian

Farm Day

Laurel took the boys out a few Saturdays ago to Farm Day here in Maricopa. ASU has a huge Agricultural Center in Maricopa and they put on a great Farm Day with a lot of activities and equipment to check out.









Christian

Halloween

I had academy on Halloween. Of course, it is also Laurel's Birthday as well. As luck would have it, academy went way late. I had some carved pumpkins to place out and when I got home, I raced to place them outside and finished lighting them when the last of the tricker treaters had left. The boys made a great haul this year. Between the two of them, they filled a brown grocery bag full. What is ironic is that we haven't eaten sugar in the house for several months now! Well the holidays will change that. Christian

Camping

Since I have Sundays off, we decided to take Monday off as well and go camping for a night in the Coronado National Forest outside of Tucson.









Christian