Thanksgiving and beyond

It's hard to remember to document the "regular" things that happen.  

My mom came for Thanksgiving dinner.  We weren't going to make a bunch of food, but Todd wanted to smoke a turkey on the egg.  Then, there was a certain side-dish he wanted.... and a specific dessert.  It turned out that he (mostly) cooked all day!  I made a couple of things, but - it was definitely Todd's show.

All we got was a photo of the table before everyone dove in.











He was cooking through the Gobble Jog too.... didn't even get to go to the top of the street to cheer on the thousands of people that come through our 'hood.  It's fun because you always see someone you know in the crowd.  This year, there was even a jogging dinosaur in an inflatable costume!!  

I took mom to a couple of shops that she wanted to visit the day after Thanksgiving, but we avoided all of the major stores and crowds.  We also went to go see the "Lights of Life" - our first Christmas lights of the season.  We played some board games and had hot chocolate too.   












One of my favorite decorations are these metal pieces that you can add to a pumpkin to turn it into a turkey!  

Before Thanksgiving, the kids were in 2 days of camp.  I tackled some work around the house and errands.  I felt sort of bad that we didn't go anywhere over break, so -- we "cashed in" the monetary gift that the grandparents for Florida gave our family and put it towards an experience the day after Thanksgiving. 

We took the kids to a place called Great Wolf Lodge.  

It's a kid-themed hotel with a large water park in an attached building.









One MAJOR surprise that we had no idea about:  Santa was arriving at the hotel the night we were there... and he arrived by helicopter!!

We stepped out of the water park for awhile to go see his debut!  He was master of ceremonies at the resort's tree lighting.

  

We did not bring "fancy" clothes to see Santa, but after dinner, we did stop by to pay him a visit.

At that point, there wasn't too long of a line to see him, but Isabella was refusing.  Mercer sat with him alone, but Santa looked our way and saw that she was shy or scared to come up, so he "summoned" her to come... and she did.  (Although she refused when we were trying to prod her to go see him.)  I'm not sure what he told her, but then she did turn and smile for us to snap a photo.  

This place was a bit Disney-ish in the theme (and opportunities for paying for additional things at the resort).   Our kids really wanted these wands and to go around an play this wand-quest game.... but honestly.... we were there for only 1 day and there was PLENTY to do at the water park and the on-site events held in the lobby.

There was an area that had a wave pool.  (This is where Isabella wanted to spend the majority of her time.)

There was a lazy river.  Both kids liked this.

Then....there were these GIANT water slides.  This was Mercer's favorite part.  

We pretty much had to split up and one parent go with each (although Mercer could do the slides on his own).  Admittedly, the giant slides were pretty great!  

They definitely had fun.... even without all of the extras!  :)



Mercer has started his basketball season.  This keeps us busy on Saturday mornings.  Mercer is the tallest kid on his team again.  He's starting to handle the ball a bit better, but mostly hangs out under the basket for rebounds.

Unfortunately, I've missed some of his games because I have classes that I take every now and then on Saturdays (these are preferred instead of week night classes, but I have to take those some as well).  These are a part of the teaching certificate.  

One Saturday, I missed because I have been helping out some with my school's LEGO robotics team.  The 6th and 7th grade team are made up of former and current students.  This was their first time competing, so they learned a lot about how to earn points at this actual competition.  They did not get a lot of points on the LEGO missions, but they won an award on their presentation of the team's core values.... and they'll move on to another tournament in January. 

That took a bit of time before and after school for practices.  Another thing that has taken a bit of time before and after school -- I was planning a field trip for our STEM kids.  I took them to my old non-profit, Southface.  They were really really good.... and I think they got a lot out of it.

One weekend, we went to Cirque du Soliel for my birthday. We took the kids and then went out for Mexican afterwards.

One more thing that we were doing a bit of over the past few weeks:  cheering on our Marietta Blue Devils.  We only made it to a couple of their games because Mercer's baseball practices were EVERY Friday night during the regular season.  We went to their first playoff game @ their home stadium.  They won pretty easily.  We did not go to the next round the following Friday -- it was across town at my old high school.... Parkview!  (it was a cold and rainy day + trying to navigate across town in Atlanta traffic on a Friday? naaah!)  But, they beat Parkview and advanced to the state championship.  We went to that game - which was held downtown at the old Braves baseball stadium which was converted to the new GA State College stadium.  It was really exciting because the small "hometown" feel carried out to this game.  There were SOOOO many people that went to the game to support the team.  We ran into people who were neighbors, former co-workers, people from each of the kids' schools, etc.  There were pep rallies, parades and the kids at Isabella's school got into it making signs for the team.  (The superintendent's daughter is in her class, so there may be a little extra team spirit there??!!)

It had been 1966 & 1967 since the last time Marietta made it to state.  There were some great articles publicized that surfaced from the two games of that era - during segregation.  The players of both teams were honored during the 2019 celebrations -- the players and cheerleaders from both years (the 1966 African American Lemon Street school and the 1967 Marietta High School, the year when desegregation had took place and the students from Lemon Street were mixed with the MHS students.)


Our little home-town school was also selected to play in a tournament in Vegas this past weekend.  They won that game as well.  (Doesn't hurt that some of the top high school players in the country are all on this one team!)  It may be a little while before Marietta sees another championship.... so much excitement this fall and winter.  Even though our kids aren't old enough to be in high school, we still wanted them to be a part of it all~


There really is something about our little town of May-retta....