Our Friday after thanksgiving tradition is decorating the house for Christmas! AJ was sleeping in because he worked the evening before but Brooke and I got the tree up so when he woke up it was ready to decorate. We all had fun decorating the tree, the inside, and the outside of the house too!
We had a wonderful Thanksgiving. Alex started it off at 6:45 but luckily went back to his room until 7:30 when I got up with him, we had donuts for breakfast, played a lot in the playroom, and at 9:00 started watching the parade. At 9:30 I started emptying the dishwasher *not so quietly* and finally Brooke and AJ came down to join us. After enjoying some more of the parade we got dressed and went on our Thanksgiving Hike. When we got home I put the parade back on so I could get some of the two hours of cooking done and Alex fell asleep with all the noise at 1pm. He got a short nap before being woken for dinner at 2pm because AJ had to leave for work a little after 3pm. After playing outside and enjoying the afternoon Brooke helped me decorate the playhouse. It was a great thanksgiving!
AJ wanted to go to dim sum now that he was back from his conference. We had a delicious meal and Brooke took down at least five shumai on her own! Yummy!
We went on a bike ride in the dark now that it’s getting dark earlier. Laura thought having the glow sticks would make it even more fun, and she was right.
Brooke and Alex had two days off school for teacher workday so we decided to take the four day weekend and take a trip to the mountains. We went to Fairy Stone State Park which was southwest of us near the Appalachian Mountains. We had a pretty drive up with all the leaves changing and found a nice rest stop for the kids to play on a playground halfway there. Once we checked in we had dinner and then explored the lake around the cabin area. The next morning the kiddos really enjoyed playing in their new bedroom and on the rocking chairs on the porch. Alex and I went to throw some more rocks into the lake near the cabins while Brooke and Daddy got ready. Then we walked from our cabin down the road to the trail head. We picked a short 2 mile hike along the edge of the lake to a dam (Lake Shore and Turkey Ridge Trail). After lunch and hot cocoa we headed to Oak Hickory Trail for a one mile run through the woods (and climbing through some fallen trees). We headed to the main beach area of the lake to take a look and let the kiddos play on the playground. After a day of tromping through wet trails we dried our shoes by the fire and after dinner had some smores. The next day we went hunting for fairy stones. AJ was the best at it and ended up finding all 4 types. After lunch, AJ let me go for a 5 mile challenging hike on Little Mountain Falls Trail which truly had what one could hardly consider a waterfall but after 2 miles of uphill ridge climbing had a beautiful lookout point. AJ took the kids to play at the lake and playground and made them both walking sticks. After nap/QT we ‘blazed a trail’ around the edge of the lake from our cabin to the amphitheater. We found a path back to the road and ran into four white tailed friends who let us take pictures of them. It was a gorgeous sunset and fun hanging around the cabin for our last night before heading home.
