We were so excited to go back to Texas for Thanksgiving this year. We looked forward to it even more this year since we knew exactly what it was going to be like. We got to the cabin late Monday afternoon. Tuesday morning we were out on the dock.

Kayaking was a hit again this year.

Hannah and I probably kayaked the most. It was so peaceful being out on the lake.

Ellie was more nervous about going out on her own so I made her go with me.

Andy got us going under the bridge.

Tuesday night Kelsey and Trent arrived. Then our group was complete and Ellie was back in heaven.

Every morning Papa J picked the kids up from our Lakehouse around 9:00 and drove the kids back to the cabin. 

That gave Andy and I a little more time in the morning to drive over at our leisure.

This year Joey did a lot more fishing.

This was his first catch.

This was his biggest catch! All in all, he caught seven fish.

At one point I looked up and saw Ellie reading on her way from the Lakehouse to the dock. I love how much she's gotten into reading this year. She's loving the Ramona series right now.

Of course the kids were thrilled to be back on ATVs.

Even Hannah!

The picture on the left was her arm last year after she ran her ATV into a barbed wire fence. This year she came with a barbed wire tattoo! 

Just like last year, Kelsey and Trent were great sports and played lots of games with the kids.

One of Hannah's new favorite activities this year was making a fire.

Steven set up some shooting targets for the kids across the lake.

Andy, Steven and the kids went over to put dirt in the empty milk containers so that they could "catch" the bullets.

There was a lot of rain in the forecast for the week, but we really only had half a day on Friday. It was so nice sitting outside, watching the rain, and reading our books. We also lost power for a little bit, but thankfully not too long.

On our rainy day, once the power came back on, Hannah and I made a double batch of soft pretzels. Hannah taught everyone how to shape them.

Once the rain had mostly stopped, Hannah and I headed back to the dock so that we could take out the kayaks. A little rain didn't bother us.

After the rain, it got pretty foggy on the lake, which was really pretty.

After the kayaks, Hannah wanted to try out the old boat. That girl loves anything having to do with water.

We had s'mores for our last night.

Then we played quite a few rounds of "Spoons." It was a lot of fun.

At one point, Ellie pulled her hair back so Trent followed suit. 

What a wonderful vacation! And we didn't even end up in the Urgent Care this time!

Ten years ago I met up with a bunch of ladies in Albuquerque to surprise my friend, Edie, for her 40th birthday. Last year, the same lady who planned Edie's 40th birthday contacted all of us on Edie's 49th birthday and said we had a year to plan her 50th. Obviously this year has been a strange year, so many of the ladies couldn't come this year, but four of us flew out of LA for another surprise. This time we were meeting in Waco. Edie's girls, Aubrey and Cayley, were taking her there for a trip to Magnolia. She just didn't know we would be there too!

 

I really don't like driving up to LA, but two things made it worthwhile...a $75 round trip ticket and a chance to spend the night with our good friends, the Spears. I drove up the afternoon after the election and got to the Spears right before dark. They live on the Air Force base in San Pedro right on the ocean. This is the view right before I turned into their driveway. It's pretty unbelievable! Early the next morning Grant drove Kelly and I to the airport, and we flew to Austin. 

When we got to Austin, Florianne (the master planner) and Joanna (her trusty sidekick/daughter) picked us up. They had gotten in the day before, and we were all staying at a hotel close to the airport. Kelly and I were pretty starving after our two flights, so we headed straight to Chuy's. Kelly and I both had heard amazing things about their queso, and we were so excited to try. Let me say, it did NOT disappoint. We had a fantastic meal there, although the creamy jalapeno dip was the surprise favorite. 

After our late lunch/early dinner at Chuy's we walked down main street and saw the state capitol building. Apparently it is the biggest state capitol building in the country. Because of the uncertainty of the election, the capitol was locked up tight with armed guards out front. It was still a very pretty view.

The last thing on our agenda for the evening was to go see the bats. Kelly, world traveler extraordinaire (seriously, she's been to 28 countries), found out that Austin is home of the largest urban bat colony in the world. At dusk, 1.5 million bats come out from under the Congress Avenue Bridge. It was really cool to see them all start pouring out from under the bridge right next to us. I didn't get the best picture, but the wispy black line that looks like smoke is the trail of bats off to find their dinner. 

The next morning we got up, checked out of our hotel, and had brunch at a lovely little spot that Florianne and Joanna had tried out the day before. It was called Josephine House, and it was delightful! 

After brunch, we drove about an hour and a half to Waco to our Airbnb. It was a darling Magnolia-style house.

Every room was so sweet. Kelly and I shared the one on the left

Our friend, Summer, who couldn't make it this time, just happened to stay at the same Airbnb in January for her sister's 40th birthday. At that point, Summer knew that we had already reserved the house for November (thanks to Florianne's proactive planning), so she left Edie a birthday note. It was so fun finding the note from way back in January! 

After we got settled in the house, we went grocery shopping. It was our first time going to an HEB, so that felt like a big deal! Joanna made us some yummy chili for dinner that night, and Kelly got to work making a fun balloon arch.

It definitely added a festive touch.

Then there was nothing to do but wait for Edie and her daughters to arrive. Kelly had never seen "Fixer Upper," so we put that on while we waited. We were tracking Aubrey's phone as they drove, so when they were a couple of minutes away, we turned out all of the lights and just sat in the dark. When Edie came in, she noticed these creepy people sitting in the dark. When the lights got turned on, we just said "Hey!" and laughed. It was fun seeing her stunned face! 

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The girls were all pretty hungry after their drive, so we fed them dinner

and dessert!

Kelly had been looking forward to using the hot tub ever since she first saw our Airbnb online, so after  eating and chatting we got into our bathing suits (I forgot mine, but thankfully Edie had an extra one that fit), got some champagne, and headed to the hot tub. Kelly told us she would give a dollar to whoever could catch the cork, but we all failed miserably, mostly because we were pretty scared of getting blasted in the face with it.

The hot tub was delightful! 

The next morning, we got up and headed to Magnolia. It was packed! 

Cayley happens to have a friend that works there (the lady in the hat) so she met up with us and kind of gave us the scoop on what to do and where to go.

The Gaines bought a really old church recently and had it moved to their property. It was cute.

We wanted to go to the restaurant or the bakery, but the restaurant was booked for the day and the line for the bakery was prohibitively long.

We did end up waiting in line for thirty minutes for Magnolia Market, their main store.

And of course we saw the Silos. All in all, Magnolia was nice, but very underwhelming.

We had much more fun back at the Airbnb! We ate, drank, played cards, and did a lot of laughing! 

Our house was a little bit out in the country, so we had a pretty view,

especially at sunset.

It was lovely.

For dinner, I made my first ever charcuterie board. I feel like I'm not normally good at anything that requires a good eye or artistic touch, but I'm not going to lie...

I felt like I nailed it! And it was so yummy!

The next day we basically packed up, had our leftover charcuterie treats for lunch, and then the Guess girls headed back to Lubbock, while the rest of us headed back to Austin. We checked back into our same hotel, had dinner at Torchy's Tacos (another Texas must-try), and drank the leftover wine in our hotel that night. We had an early flight back to LA the next day, and then I drove back home. It was a quick, wonderful trip! Kind of like the last one! 

After our weird year, the kids were concerned about not being able to go trick-or-treating. Thankfully, our neighborhood decided to go ahead with Halloween as usual for those who wanted to participate. We were just supposed to wear masks and socially distance as much as possible.

We had a fun family theme for Halloween all planned out this year, but we didn't want to have to wear masks with our costumes.

So we decided to pick costumes that made mask wearing easy.

This year we had a couple little girls from church (and their mom) join us for dinner and trick-or-treating. My dad was out of town, but by mom still came, which the kids always look forward to.

This was our crew this year. How beautiful was the sunset that night!?

These two make me so happy.

Chloe, Hannah and I were all cowgirls. When did we all get to be the same height?!

A bunch of Ellie's friends went as M&Ms. I love that Ellie was her own person and decided to be a pirate anyway. She would have made a cute green M&M though! ;-)

Less than half of our neighborhood participated in Halloween this year, but the ones that did went ALL OUT. It was so fun to see how people decorated. And instead of getting one piece of candy per house, most people handed out little bags of candy so the kids still got tons of candy.

Ellie spent the evening trick-or-treating with her friends. Then they went back to Cameron's house to go through all of their loot.

Apparently there was a lot of giggling coming from Cameron's room.

 

These four came back to our house. They were all quite happy with their bags full of candy! Halloween 2020, you turned out to be a great one!