November 2017
The month of November is typically the “calm before the
storm” of the holiday season. As we are
into December, we are well into the swing of addressing Christmas cards,
decorating and shopping. It was nice to
have a relatively quiet November and Thanksgiving to prepare us for the month
of December.
November started off with a road trip to North Canton to
visit my sister and her family. Each and
every time we see the Vandervaarts, things seem to get easier amongst the kids
as they get along really well. All 5 of
them slept in one room this trip, which I never really thought was going to
work. Of course there were arguments on “who
got to sleep with who” and “someone wasn’t playing with me” type stuff, but
those were far and few between. When we
arrived, they had ordered some pizza for dinner and had the beds ready for the
kids. On Saturday, Laura and I went to
watch Jake play soccer. The remainder of
the day the kids played outside, where they got out their bounce house and they
also played soccer. It was a relaxing
weekend and the girls were disappointed to leave!
And what a difference 3 years make! 3 years ago, I probably spent about 4-6 hours
per weekend in late October thru November doing stuff in the yard. Leaves, cutting back plants, trimming bushes
and getting the yard ready for winter.
This year, the girls just played in the leaves while Deb and I were able
to both work on the yard and I spent a lot less time getting everything
done!
Our Thanksgiving holiday had little on our schedule and
for that, we are really thankful! Our
holiday started off on Wednesday night, where my mom watched the girls and Deb and
I went to the Watkins house for the 15th Friends Thanksgiving. Since we travel every other year, we can only
go to this once every 2 years. We had a
great time catching up with friends, but it is the people you don’t see very
often that make it truly memorable. And
whenever you see Bleill, he usually makes it a good time with stories and jokes
about life and friendships. We woke up
on Thanksgiving morning and participated in the Drumstick Dash in Broad Ripple
with the Christ the King Running Club.
Allison and I ran the entire 2.75 “short course” in 36 minutes which I
was very impressed with Allison running that far. Deb pushed Sarah in a stroller and Sarah will
boast that “she did it too.” We went to
the Campbell’s afterwards for a nice brunch with other friends from the church. After a few mid-morning cocktails, we went
home to get ready for Thanksgiving dinner at the Wahman’s house. We completed our traditional free throw game
(need to make 50% as a group before we eat) and had a great meal with our
family. When we woke up on Friday, we
found a 50 degree day and decided that was our day to clean up the yard. On Saturday, the girls got on their Purdue
gear and we watched the Bucket game where the winner got to go to a bowl game. Allison was intense watching the game and I
think Sarah knew we were watching football.
Purdue won a close game and the girls were excited and now they expect the
winner of every game they watch to get a bucket when they win!
Sarah’s
Things of the Month
Sarah had her last Thanksgiving lunch at Learning
Time. I came over to enjoy lunch with
her and then took her home for the afternoon.
She enjoyed going shopping for the food with her classmates and helping
cook the meal. Sarah also started
gymnastics at the end of November which should go through January.
Allison’s Thing of the Month
Allison had her monthly Daisy meeting and she enjoyed
participating with her classmates.
Allison also started gymnastics at the end of November which should go
through January.
A few more items from this
month:
- I coached the 4th grade girls for the 2nd year at Christ the King. This year, we ended the season 8-5 and were the city runner-up!
- We went to the Steffey’s house for a Friends Thanksgiving. We enjoyed seeing everyone and the traditional doubles ping-pong tournament.
- We went to a Christ the King Community Dinner during November. It was fun to spend time at the school doing different activities.
- Deb and I were able to get a date night on the calendar. We went to Palomino’s downtown and then met up with Lawton and the Steffey’s at Triton Tap for a few beers on our way home.
- We enjoyed going over to the Foulke’s house for some homemade pizza. The girls played well together and even put together a concert for us singing about how “Purdue wins” and “IU sucks.” Apparently, the Foulke’s went to a football game and Zoey remembered the student section yelling this out about IU, so she decided to make it part of the song! Oops!
