Thanksgivng Break

We had a fabulous Thanksgiving! Not very traditional, but we made the best of it while being away from family. We spent the morning putting up the Christmas tree and watching the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade. Then we went to SEA WORLD for the day!!! Way more crowded than what we had anticipated and because of that we didn't stay as long as originally planned. Our intentions were to stay while it was dark and see all of the lights and visit Santa but we were done with the crowds well before that.

Derek tried so hard to get Allie to go on this with him. It's the one "adult" ride that she's tall enough for. I don't blame her for not going though. It was in the upper 70's but everyone else thought that was too cold for water rides here in Texas. There were no lines so Derek was able to go over and over again without waiting.

Avery wasn't able to ride the rollercoaster when we were there a couple weeks ago because she was too short. She was turned away again this time, but we went back later and snuck her through a few times by having her walk on her tip toes. She LOVED it! It's hard to see in the picture but she's smiling and has her hands up!

 We did get to have somewhat of a Thanksgiving meal. We warmed up a ham when we got home and fixed some corn and fried potatoes to go along with it. We were all starving and ate very well!
The girls and I even made a couple of pies on Wednesday so we'd have some dessert!

My first ever homemade (from scratch) apple pie!

While we were eating Allie had each one of us say what we were thankful for.......Heavenly Father, Jesus Christ, and family were the most said.

Allie's Thanksgiving decor

Now on to the rest of our week........
Here in Texas, at least for the school district Allie is in, we get the whole week of Thanksgiving off. I thought it was funny when Allie came home from school on Friday excitedly saying, "We have 9 whole days off of school!" That's not like her. She would love to go to school every day if she could. I think her teacher was ready for a break and got the class excited about it too!

We made the most of the break and partook in lots of fun activities.

MINITOWN

NEW BRAUNFELS/GRUENE/SAN MARCOS
Derek was able to take Tuesday off of work so we spent the entire day out and about. First stop was the Mckenna Children's Museum in New Braunfels.

Okay, so he may not have physically been at work.....but really he's always working. 

Blake thought hanging out in the tee-pee with his sisters was very cool!

Love you to the moon and back

Then we went to the outlet malls in San Marcos. I've been twice before. They've both been super quick trips. We were there a lot longer this time and didn't even get through half of it! It's, seriously, one of the biggest outlets I've ever seen!
Then we stopped for dinner at the Gristmill Inn in Gruene. I'm so glad I looked up a good place to eat before we left on our outing. This place was AMAZING! The best ribs and gruene beans I've ever had!! The atmosphere and views were really nice too.......and we avoided rush hour traffic by stopping here. Perfect ending to a great day.

We even made a trip to Bass Pro Shops to see Santa. Both girls were super excited this year. Allie kept practicing what she was going to tell him that she wanted. She wanted to say a Fijit Friend but was having a hard time saying it so she switched to My Walking Dog. Avery asked for the same thing. No crying kids this year!

And, yes, Blake was on all of our outings too. He is cross-eyed in most of his pictures or else doing this:

His new thing