Happy Thanksgiving!

This has been a nice long break for us and we're sad to see it end.  

We had a chilly start to the week, causing mom to pull out all our winter gear.  She sent me to school on Monday with a thick coat, gloves, scarf and a hat.  It was possibly a teeny bit of overkill but you can never have to much gear on when it comes to cold!

Thankfully, it warmed up by Wednesday because we headed out for our second annual Thanksgiving "camping" trip.

We went with our camping friends, Mike, Audrey and Madeline and this year, we had full hook ups!  That is the Ritz in RV terms.  All the water and electricity we could use so no worries about our heat conking out at 2 AM like last year.  We maintained a cozy 67 degrees both nights and were snug bugs. 

Thanksgiving day was just gorgeous- even a little warm.  Probably 80 degrees!  We spent the day bike riding, hiking, feeding the horses.  And this year, we even ate while the sun was up so the food stayed warm while we ate it!  Last year, we ate after dark, bundled up, shoveling food in before it got cold.

We got home late Friday morning, unpacked, showered and then headed out to get the tail end of Black Friday sales.  We all came away with something to show for our efforts so it was a good evening.
On Saturday, we put up our Christmas tree and all of our decorations and now we are full on into the Christmas season, even though it continues to be 75 degrees.

It's back to the grind tomorrow for a few more weeks.  Hope everyone had a happy and safe Thanksgiving day and have a great week!

What to do? What to do?

Greetings from toasty, warm Tucson!  This was our first weekend in a long, long time with nothing on the schedule.  No softball games, no traveling, nothing.  Mom and dad weren't not quite sure what to do with themselves.  I, on the other hand, had a friend filled weekend and it was super fun!

We made it through the week and I was kind of (OK, I WAS) a big grump.  I was tired all week from our weekend and I was getting over a little cold.  I was sure snotty in the mornings and sleepy in the afternoons but we survived.  

On Saturday, because we didn't have anything else to do, mom slept in until 7 AM!!  You'd have thought she was the sick, tired one.  Dad and I were up and raring to go at 5:30 in the AM.  Once everyone was up, we got our workouts in and mom cleaned the house.  I got out of that one because I had a nice long playdate with my friend Lily.  It was super fun.  While I was there, mom and dad headed out in two different directions to get some clothes shopping done.  Mom was successful, dad was not, so that probably means more of it in dad's future.  Good times!

My friends Max and Claire had their birthday party back in October.  (Remember the Big Kahuna??) Instead of buying them a gift, we decided to take them out to do something.  They picked the climbing gym and today was the day.  

We went to Eegees for lunch and mom was very amused by us and our conversations.

Then we headed to the climbing gym.  We were the only kids there and had the whole climbing part to ourselves.  We had climbing races, rappelling races, creative dismount competitions.....

After we wore ourselves out doing that, we came back here for a bit and finally dropped Max and Claire at home around 5.
We are mentally preparing for Thanksgiving on Thursday- that's about all we have to do since we ordered our dinner again!  Woot-woot!  Have a great week!

Return to the Scene of the Crime.....

We have had some complaints about the last two blogs.  Apparently some people don't like it when "mom" writes the blog.  They said it was better and more creative when "Jordan" wrote it.    Well, you don't have to tell us twice (and mom kind of agrees with the creative part) so I am back!  Yeah me!

And now, with further ado- back to the Goedel Family Adventures.

Softball has finally ended, thank goodness (did I say that out loud?).  I have started intramurals at school.  We are doing 4 weeks of volleyball and 4 weeks of basketball.  Our girls won the Tucson Independent Athletic League championship for volleyball this past week and our basketball team is pretty good so this will be a good learning thing for me.  I really like volleyball so far and if it weren't for the stupid boys always hogging the ball, I might actually love it.

Did you know that this past week was mom and dad's 10th wedding anniversary??  I had no idea there was even life before I was born but apparently, there was.  Mom and dad cannot believe how fast things have gone- the blink of an eye.  It's been a fun blink though!

To celebrate, dad surprised us with a trip to Tanque Verde Ranch.  This is where they had their wedding reception eons ago.  They had always talked about doing a stay-cation there one day and this seemed the perfect time.  It was tons and tons of fun.  I got to go to the kids camp on Saturday which involved not one, but two long horse back rides through the desert.  Heaven I tell you.  Mom and dad took advantage of some down time and went for a short hike and then they drove to Starbucks and then came back took a much needed nap and hung out by the pool.

Saturday night was probably the highlight of the weekend.  The ranch has a big cookout under the cottonwood trees and it was just beautiful.  All my friends from kids camp were there so I got to run around like a crazy woman all night.  And then.... mom and dad actually, really and truly talked to new people!  They never talk to anyone new and no one ever talks to them so this was new territory for them.  It was kind of fun but they probably won't make a habit of it. There were great big fire pits, good food and good family time.   We could not have had a more perfect night to highlight 10 years.

Have a happy week before Thanksgiving!

Recovery Week

Happy Belated Halloween!  We were exhausted after another whirlwind two days at Disneyland and just couldn't sum up the energy to do anything but stare into space last Sunday.  We had a great time and of course, Disney does it up right for the holidays.  We have Disney down to a science now and can easily get in 12-14 rides at peak season.  (We rock, I know ;) ).  This time though, it was so very not crowded that we didn't really need any of our skills so it was a little more relaxing then usual.

On Halloween night, only people with wrist bands get and they only sell about 1/3 of park capacity so it isn't too crazy.  There are 12 "treat trails" throughout the park and each trail has 4 stations that you stop, open your bag and candy is literally dumped by the handful into it.

We came home with 15, count them 15 pounds of candy.  Lordy.  We somehow managed to get it back in our suitcases and gave most of it to Rich's mom to take into work.

Nothing out of the ordinary for our week.  Softball on Tuesday and Thursday.  I took Jordan to vote on Tuesday.  It was a last minute decision because I wanted her to see the whole process so I ended up with a provisional ballot.  The poll workers were great with her, explaining how everything worked and she actually seemed interested!

Saturday was the final softball game of the less than stellar fall season.  The girls didn't win a game all season but there was definite improvement with all of them, so I guess that's good......
Rich ended up pitching to the girls during the game.  Turns out, he is a good softball pitcher and struck a whole bunch of our girls out.  It did make the game go nice and fast which is always a blessing.
Saturday night, Rich and I headed out for a date night with some friends while Jordan hung back with favorite babysitter.  Our dinner was pretty bad and we ended up being comped for part of it and the show we went to see was just OK.  At least the company was good!

Ginger and I are officially Puppy School drop outs.  I just didn't have it in me anymore to drag our butts to class once a week and come home absolutely exhausted and a little disheartened by how crazy our monkey seems.  So now, we are just doing stuff on our own and it is so much easier.  This morning, Jordan and I took Ginger to a new park to do some exploring and "manners work"  We are slowly but surely making progress and maybe some day, she can make her public debut.  Deep sigh.....

After that morning adventure, I met an old friend for brunch and finally, finally was able to try a cronut.  What is a cronut you ask?  It is a craze that has been sweeping the nation- a doughnut made from croissant dough.   Mine was chocolate caramel.  Yes, it is as good as it sounds and yes, I ate a whole one.  After eating all of my biscuits and gravy.  It was not a stellar day nutritionally but it was damn tasty.
We had Rich's parents over for dinner and had a really fun evening.  We are now gearing up for another week of the grind.  Jordan gets tomorrow off- lucky girl

Hope everyone has a great week!