thanksgiving week 2023

in past years when my brother has been in town for thanksgiving i've filled the week off school with ice skating, movie theater, bowling, etc. since he isn't here this year, the kids were happy to just hang out with their friends and i kept things really simple. overall, we had a good week, but there were many hard moments of bickering, boredom, and complaining. i try to keep my blog more of a positive memory place, but i just had to mention that.  on the other hand, it was really nice to have a week of sleeping past 6:30, not packing lunches, and a couple days off work. 

last monday we had conferences for both kids. ashford's was in the morning and it was just his teacher, thatcher and me. we got a good report from her, but it sounds like he definitely is more tempted to goof off in class since he's with all his friends this year. ha! ashford went to arlo's in the afternoon and azalea and i went to the library together. then we had azalea's conference at 4pm. her school does 'student led' conferences, where the students create a power point about how each of their classes are going. her homeroom teacher was there, but azalea did most of the talking. :) i'm happy to report 7th grade is going well for her. we are really proud of both of them.

tuesday morning azalea and i braved fred meyer to get the rest of our thanksgiving groceries. i took the kids to chipotle for lunch then they requested stopping at target and dick's sporting goods. we mostly just looked around. arlo came over in the afternoon to hang out with ashford. 

wednesday morning i escaped to the gym, which felt good. last week i ordered myself an early christmas gift from wayfair. i've been wanting a coffee table or ottoman for years, and i finally found the perfect one. it arrived on wednesday and only took about 15 minutes to assemble. it really completes the room and it's so nice to have a place to put our feet up. 

azalea's friend penny came over to hang out in the afternoon and ashford went to fritz's house. i took the girls to cupcake royale (where they ordered ice cream - ha!) and a couple stores on market street. i'm glad they aren't too cool for me yet. :) 

thursday was thanksgiving! i've had complicated feelings around holidays since we've moved here. we choose to see our families at other times of the year (3 weeks in minnesota in the summer, a week in florida in february, and they come see us other times during the year), but the holidays are still really hard for me. i mentioned my brother didn't come this year and we rarely celebrate with friends, which i know is partly on us. i went into the day with very low expectations, but it actually ended up being a really nice day. we started the day with the macy's parade and coloring thanksgiving pictures.

 the rest of the day was spent cooking, reading, playing video games, and relaxing.  i always make a big turkey dinner, because i love doing that once a year even though the rest of my family isn't as into it ;)

we also had stuffing, mashed potatoes, gravy, green beans, rolls, blueberry muffins, cranberry sauce, and pumpkin pie. yum! we decided to decorate for christmas after dinner since we were planning to go up to our property on friday, but most of our tree lights were burnt out, so we didn't get very far. 

friday morning we hit the road for our property. we are having a shed installed this week, so thatcher needed to mark off where it's going to go. i've also been dying to meet the alpaca who live next door :) we did not think about the fact that there would be major 'black friday' shopper traffic near the outlet mall along I-5. oof. we stopped for lunch at 'blue mountain grill' which was great as always. then we hung out at the property for a couple hours. it was sunny but cold and windy. we built a fire, but it was hard to keep it going. we visited with our neighbors (human and alpaca) and got some yard work done. people have been asking me when we might start building our cabin and unfortunately, it's still probably well over a year away as much as we would like it to be sooner. 

we got home at dinner time and had thanksgiving leftovers, then it was time to decorate the tree! then thatcher and i watched a christmas movie on amazon prime while the kids played video games. 

saturday morning we all slept past 8:30. wahoo! we had an appointment for flu/covid shots at bartells. the kids always dread it, but they did great. we mostly hung out at home the rest of the day. i worked on our holiday cards. thatcher ran some errands and went on a walk. by evening we were all feeling the effects of our shots, so another movie night it was. 

sunday morning we lounged around the house until ashford had a haircut appointment. the afternoon was more holiday card addressing, watching love actually, and reading. we managed to eat leftovers/lazy dinners for 3 nights straight after thanksgiving, which was such a nice break from cooking. 

now we are back to the grind for 3 weeks until winter break. but it's my favorite time of year, so lots of fun and cozyness to come!