Happy Thanksgiving!

We had such a fun Thanksgiving!  This is one of my favorite holidays.  A holiday where you eat some of the best food of the year, what's not to love!?  It is really a fun, relaxing time surrounded by family.  I love it!  The kids were excited for a week off from school.  The celebrating really kicked off on Friday, the last day of school before break.  Bryce had his Thanksgiving program at First Friends and a feast following.  This was his very first Thanksgiving program and he is in the 2 year class so they were up first to sing songs.  I think they were so stinkin cute!  They all were amazed at the crowd there to watch them, and were all scanning the room to find their Mamas and Daddys.  I thought they were all just precious!

After Bryce's feast we had Kate's Thanksgiving party at school.  The kids sang some songs for us and then they made turkeys with popcorn and M&M's or Skittles.  Mrs. Sandi was so sweet she even had stuff for Bryce to make one.  I think he loved eating his Skittles while making the turkey!  They had a fun time and I'm so very thankful for these awesome teachers who have days and parties like this so parents can come and share this fun with our kids!

 Silly Turkeys as you can see!

Saturday we had one last home game in Athens watching the Dawgs!  I can't believe this was the last home game!  We always look so forward to football season starting and just like everything else it flew by!  What a year we had too!  Undefeated at home...GO DAWGS!   I hope the winning continues and we are just enjoying the games in other stadiums.

On Sunday after church, we made our way to one of our favorite Thanksgiving traditions...a few days away at the cabin!  Kate had been counting down the days!  I think the kids were more excited about going to the cabin than anything.  This was our 5th year going to the cabin.  Larry rents 2 cabins at Oconee State Park each year and we spend 2 days and nights and it is so much fun.  We hike, play, eat, talk, laugh, and just enjoy being with family.  It is so beautiful this time of year and so peaceful.  Sunday when we arrived we got unpacked, the kids explored the loft in our cabin (their favorite), and then we headed out for a hike.  We hiked to King Creek Falls.  We've done this hike before but it is beautiful and easy for the kids to do, especially Bryce.  Its close to 2 miles round trip so not too bad.
After our hike we came back to the cabins and settled in.  We roasted hotdogs, had chili & chips, and then roasted s'mores!  Perfect!

Before going on the hike we had to take a potty break...when your potty training you carry the potty and do what you have to do!

The kids were glad to work on Sug's turkey craft.  We all write on a feather what we are thankful for and that forms the turkey's feathers!

Monday we went on another hike to Station Falls near Walhalla, SC.  We did this hike last year too but again it was one that wasn't too long for the kids and it is very pretty.  As we started our hike we noticed a big group of school kids coming our way!  They must take hiking field trips up there.  We tried to hike quick to beat them in!  Ha!  When we got to the falls we were taking pictures when the group caught up to us!  Just in time, we were finishing up!  Kelly & Davis actually hiked all the way back to the park.  It is about 2.5 miles hiking but longer driving for sure.  I think they had a mostly uphill hike back so that may be the one and only time they do that!

After our hike we headed back for lunch and then after lunch it was time for kickball...here Hubby is getting stretched out...after our game I bet he was glad he did because things were down right funny.  Davis & Kelly had a little collision.  There's no mercy when it comes to kickball!  We all got the most laughs and had a lot of fun!

We took our annual family picture too!  No better place!

Monday night we have our Thanksgiving dinner and it is delicious!  I think we all look forward to this meal for the entire year!   The kids enjoyed learning card games and we just sat around and enjoyed our last night.  Its a quick trip but so much fun and one we look forward too.  Here are our cute little cabins.

Talking with Pop

When we got home Tuesday afternoon we got started on our Christmas decorating.  Even though we had a few more days before Thanksgiving I have to jump on it while the kids are home.  When Thanksgiving day came we were excited to see more family and eat more food!  It was a day full of both and we enjoyed it all.  We spent lunch at Suzy's and then went to Athens that night.  You can see from the pictures that the kids had a blast playing on Denny's hammock!  I don't have any pictures from Nana's house!  I wish I did.  My kids loved seeing their cousins.  Cohen loves getting to play with Emily's kids, especially Claire and Kate and Tate have always played so good together.  I love watching them and listening to their conversations.  These 2 are both animal lovers!  After it was all over Dawn & I headed out for a little Black Friday shopping.  Even though we have no set game plan we always have fun kick starting our Christmas shopping.  And we did snag a few deals!  What a fun ending to a fun day!  Happy Thanksgiving!!

pretty sure her spine might be missing!

This picture was taken just a few nights ago but I had to share it!  Bryce got in Kate's bed with her and when I got in there she had the eye mask on him!  And he seemed just fine with it!  They both froze when they heard me coming and pretended to be asleep.  Little did they know I was just taking a cute picture!  They crack me up!

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Disney Run Fun

That title is a bit misleading...Disney is a ton of fun, the running part is only fun at the finish line!  I can't believe its already been almost 2 weeks since we were in Disney.  A few of us girls went to Disney for the Wine & Dine race weekend.  We were running the 10k which was my second Disney run.   I always love any reason to get to Disney!  The Disney runs always fill up so fast but they re-opened some spots earlier this year and we were able to sign up.  The only down side to these runs is the early start times!  Oh my!  You have to be on the bus leaving your hotel no later than 4:30!  I am not a morning person so that is not appealing to me at all but it happened and we all made it.
Our trip started on Thursday afternoon.  I had been in Athens with Bryce at the doctor so needless to say my day was not going as planned but I had to make sure my baby was ok.  He was fighting a severe case of bronchitis so I'm glad I got him there and started on some medicine.  Because I was so busy with him I actually left my house and forgot one of my bags which had my bathroom things but luckily I was with four other girls so I was covered.  We flew down and arrived in Kissimee around 6:00.  We went to Disney Springs our first night and shopped a little and ate at Earl of Sandwich.  Then we crashed to get ready for our next day at the park.

Clearly Dawn was not a fan of the small plane:)

Friday we got up and made our way to the parks.  Since no children were on this trip we moved a little quicker and we were mainly looking for roller coasters!  First up was Hollywood Studios where we could ride The Tower of Terror, Rockin' Rollercoaster, and we did throw in Toy Story.  Rockin' Roller Coaster is my absolute favorite ride down there so we jumped on it twice.  Getting there early helped with that!

Ride 1 

Ride 2-Same face & hair!

Tower of Terror

When we left Hollywood Studios we headed over to Epcot for some fun rides there.  And from there we had to go to the expo to pick up our packets.  I was so tired that afternoon!  When we went back to our room later that afternoon I had to get a nap in!  Those don't happen at home for sure.  We ate at our hotel that night since we needed to get to bed early.  That 4:00 am wake up call required an early bed time!

Saturday we headed out at 4:30 and started our run at 5:30.  The race goes through both Hollywood Studios and ends at Epcot. We are finished before the sun even comes up!

The rest of the day...since it was just getting started, we spent at Animal Kingdom and Magic Kingdom.  Disney was in the process of filming their Disney Christmas special so it was neat to get to see some of that.  Cohen would have been in heaven since there were several Disney channel stars there.  One was from Disney's Decendants and plays the part of Jay.  She was a little mad when I told her.  We also saw several players from the Houston Astros.  They were filming what looked like a parade for the World Series winners.  It was so neat seeing the parks decorated at Christmas.  I only wanted to see the castle lit up and they had not yet did that.  We were told that they were going to light it filming for their special but this was after 11:30 and we were beat!  I guess we will just have to go back some time to see it for Christmas!

That night we had reservations at Cape May.  It was so good!  This is Donna's favorite place and we were all excited to see real food on Donna's plate...not a piece of lettuce or almond.

 Unfortunately I had to miss the GA game but I was glad Kelly and Brock had a fun time.  He even sent me a picture!   Cohen was also helping to crown at the high school's Miss Echo pageant.  She is Little Miss Echo so that was why she was asked to help and they even had her twirl for entertainment.  A big big thank you to everyone who sent me videos and pictures so I didn't have to completely miss it!  She did so good and I was so proud of her.  Grace was in Miss Echo so Dawn and I both were constantly being kept up to speed.  When you do have to miss something its so nice to have friends who will make sure to send you videos!  All around a fun weekend!