Skip to main content

The Bunch Go Camping and Celebrate Thanksgiving

 

We are starting our hike.

We had planned to spend a few days out at Bonham State Park over the Thanksgiving holidays so we could check out the wedding venue before C's big day. However, it ended up being completely booked and so was almost every other state park within a hundred miles of us. We ended up getting the last available site at the lake that is only 30 minutes from our house. Since it was the last spot, I figured it would have something wrong with it, but as it turned out, it was one of our favorite spots. Not only was it fairly level, but it was extra wide, which was nice since we spend a lot of time outside watching tv and using our Solo Stove. We absolutely love our Solo Stove. It is nice to be able to move the fire around to where ever we want to sit instead of being restricted to where the fire pit is and because of how the stove is made it has virtually no smoke from the fire. The weather was almost perfect. It was a little chilly in the mornings with nice mild afternoons. We enjoyed our time there. Our site even had its own little private peninsula on the lake.

Our own private peninsula on the lake.

Our neighbors had a Solo Stove too! They are wonderful. 💗

We had a great weekend.

We even did an RV project we had been meaning to get to. The weather was fantastic!

I took her out to cuddle with me by the fire, but she is a big scaredy cat so she wasn't out too long. 

T's energy is endless! 

The campground opened a nature center that we checked out. It was interesting, but geared more to little kids.

Our hike ended up being quite steep. We couldn't go to far because at 3:30pm it was already starting to get dusk in the woods and we did not want to be out when it was completely dark. We only went on about a 2.5 mile hike.

We had so much fun with last year's advent calendars that I went a little crazy this year and bought 9! L had a crazy time making the chart for who opens what on what day! A is excited about the Harry Potter one, I can't wait for the Christmas socks, and T is really happy about the Friends ' bath one. He loves his baths!

A came with us this time since she is pretty much down with all her work for this semester. After next semester, she has to get employment as a vet tech for at least 20 hours a week so her time of camping with us is coming to a close. It feels weird, but the kids will grow up and do their own things. All I can do is cherish the memories I have from all our experiences together, which thankfully was many.  L will be a senior next year so her time with us is limited also. Next semester she will get her driver's license. Thankfully, she actually wants to drive, unlike A, so hopefully it won't be such an upsetting experience. You will be happy to know that A is no longer really afraid of driving. She regularly takes her siblings to town to do various things. She still avoids high traffic areas and really long distances, but she no longer has anxiety attacks about driving to normal activities. 


D had Thanksgiving week off for the second year in a row. Other than camping for a couple days, we pretty much just stayed home and caught up on some projects. We did our normal Thanksgiving routine. We get up and have an extra hard workout and then pretty much just watch tv and eat the rest of the day. We watch the parade first and then the dog show. A is always super excited about the parade. Last year since it had Hamilton in it, the girls even watched the rebroadcast. This year the parade highlighted Wicked which was fun since we had just seen it. They both are super excited about Six though. The girls did watch the rebroadcast of Six, which tells the story of Henry VIII wives. It is similar to how Hamilton was told, but I am not sure if the directors are the same. They really want to see it. We also made our Thanksgiving Day gingerbread houses. I can't remember how that became a tradition, but we have been doing it for many years now. This year A decided not to make her ginger house, though when she saw the other kids had oreo houses to build she wished she would have decided to do one. Yes, my kids basically make their house so they can eat sugar.

T building his Oreo house.

L is very meticulous about designing her house.

L's turned out super cute. She did a Mickey theme. T has already eaten his walls!

I hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving! My most favorite holiday is next..Christmas!! I am already almost completely decorated and completely done shopping so I will really get to enjoy Christmas this year.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

The Bunch Are Off To A Wonderful 2025 And Are Considering A Change 🤔

It's official, she has a college diploma!! Besides totally enjoying a drama free year, we have been consciously spending time doing things as a family and spending time with each child doing things they enjoy. D has been playing ball and watching movies with his larger "mini me" while A and I have been spending a lot of time in Dallas going to the theatre. A absolutely loves going to see off Broadway productions! I won't be surprised in the slightest if she ends up getting season tickets. Dallas Broadway does a lottery to each show where if they draw your name you have 3 hours to buy tickets for $39 each including all fees! That is an absolute steal! She actually won the lottery on Tuesday so we went that night to see the production of "& Juliet". The seats she won were FANTASTIC! They don't give you cheap seats in the back for the lottery. You win good seats. The seats we ended up with worked out to be only about a quarter of the regular price! We h...

The Bunch Celebrate Christmas

  It's become tradition for T to wear a Santa hat on Christmas. Our Christmas was pretty low key. D was able to go in late so he was able to have Christmas with us before he went to work which was really nice. The kids and I packed up and moved Christmas brunch to C&H's house since he needs to stay close to home and we worried about the lack of emergency care both on the way to our house and while here. I made up a potato casserole ahead of time, brought stuff for garden scrambled eggs, and banana bread while H made a really good cranberry punch and some pigs in a blanket. I have to say for only 5 people we had a ton of food! In fact, T ate so much for brunch I don't think he really ate anything for the rest of the day. He also finished his very last hour of driving on his way back home! Driver's license here we come....next week! After the mess Axl made last time we left him in his crate, we reenforced the doors with zip ties. We also made sure to take him on a wal...

The Bunch Visit Family

  We had fun playing some board games...and it wasn't even a fun jar idea! We just did it because it sounded like fun! The fun jar has been a little slow being implemented this year. T made sure to let me know! We're making up for it next week by drawing several things.  We have had a wonderfully busy week visiting family and getting things done around the house. We went over to my parents house to celebrate Father's Day and while the boys played games with Grandpa, the girls went with Grandma to show her what all the fuss about Trader Joe's is about. She enjoyed looking at all the different things and even found a few gems of her own. It was a nice day and fun to get out together for a little bit. We had a great day!🥰 We picked up Whataburger for my Dad as a treat and my mom made some tots and a side salad up to go with it.💗 We also had a nice long visit with our Aunt P. She's been under the weather and we hadn't had a visit in a couple weeks so it was nice t...