Weekend Recap (Mission Inn & Cold Weather)

Sorry for the lack of posts this past week. It seems that during this busy holiday season "Weekend Recap" posts might be just about all I can get up on the blog. Once things slow down I'll resume a more "normal" posting schedule. 

This weekend we attended the Common Ground Annual Holiday Party (pics of that to come) and had a very nice time fellowshipping with everyone that we hadn't seen in a while (we're hoping to start participating more in 2014 now that Carter is older).

Then on Sunday we went to see the Festival of Lights at The Mission Inn. We had been about 10 years ago, but it was even better then I remembered! It was a VERY cold (by Southern Cali standards), but we had a nice time walking about and seeing all of the lights and decorations. There were also two reindeer in training and roasted nuts, kettle corn, hot cocoa and all of those winter treats. I think this might just become a yearly tradition for us!

Weekend Recap (xmas decorating & a new camera!)

Following Thanksgiving (well actually starting the evening of), we were pretty busy! The phrase "shop 'til you drop" comes to mind. Personally, I don't like the new Black Friday hours at all! I think it's not right to do to employees and not right to do to the customer either (I think we'd all like to be home relaxing on Thanksgiving). However, we got in line for Target at 5:30pm (opened at 8pm) because it saved us $400 on a new camera (a savings we just couldn't pass by). Since we were already out and had my mom to spend the night with Carter, we headed to Walmart and Kohls, too. Our original plan was to go to the mall at midnight when it opened, but after standing in line for 3 hours (yes, THREE HOURS!) at Kohls, we were exhausted come 1am. I am happy to report that just about all of our Christmas shopping is complete though!

Instead of waiting until Christmas, we opened up our new camera (our old one was fading fast as you could probably tell from the Thanksgiving pictures. Lots of blurry ones!). Madison stayed the weekend with us and she helped put up the tree and decorations.

And we snapped lots of photos...because what else do you do when you have a new camera? ;)

With the help of Dee dee he's slowly mastering his new bike!

Happy Thanksgiving 2013

We hosted Thanksgiving at our house for the second year in a row. After years of celebrating with Russ' large extended family we are still getting used to a more intimate gathering, but it was very nice. The food was delicious and Carter enjoyed having all of the most important people in his life gathered together at the same time. I hope that each and everyone of you had a Happy Thanksgiving, as well!