Wednesday, December 20, 2017

5th Annual Lake House Weekend

Every time the start of school rolls around, HG starts asking when are we going to the lake house in Arkansas with Camille and Emsley. I love that it’s become a fixture in her fall. This marked our fifth year to get away together, and this time, we left the little sisters at home. We enjoyed a quiet weekend together (Nov. 17-19), and with the crazy rain and wind on Saturday, we were homebound for all but a quick shopping trip to town (and ice cream, of course) and a record fast visit to the playground (it was wet and COLD). We always come home with happy hearts after quality time with our girls!

Baby dolls and Minecraft were the top two activities this year.

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2013 vs. 2017

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Opryland

Helen Grace and I jumped at the chance to join some of her friends on a quick Opryland getaway in Nashville the weekend after Thanksgiving. While I couldn’t keep the secret from HG, the trip was a surprise to the other girls. We "bumped into” them at Cracker Barrel on the edge of town, revealed the news to them, and hit the road to Nashville. After we dropped our bags in our room, we headed to ICE, then ice skating, dinner at Rainforest Cafe, and finally a late night walk and boat ride around the hotel. After brunch on Sunday, we headed back home (to make it to a Grizzlies game). I had expected a huge crowd at Opryland with it being the Saturday after Black Friday, but we were pleasantly surprised that everyone seemed to be clearing out. It was a really nice visit to one of our favorite spots, which wouldn’t have been possible without John holding up the Cressey front at home- bless him! (We had two double beds in our room, and let it be noted that this was the first time that she chose to sleep in a separate bed from me. She was so tired that she even let me turn off all the lights. It was awesome.)

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Checking out the view from our rooms

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Ready for ICE

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Cressey’s first post-Thanksgiving Monopoly game

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Dinner at Rainforest Cafe

Rainforest Cafe

Riding back to the hotel

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Late night exploration

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Boat ride…waaaayy past bedtime…zzzzz

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I got out of the shower to find this sweet note written in the fog on the mirror.

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A nice, slow morning and time on the balcony, which was top of this girl’s list.

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She happily posed for Ms. Sara though.

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Not happy that 1) mama was asking for another pic and 2) that we had to leave.

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Thanksgiving

We all met up at Spiffer and Granddaddy’s for Thanksgiving this year. We had all the littlest Moore cousins together (yay!!!!), and Spiffer went all out for the kid table- crayons, paper, coloring books, cute plates, etc. Helen Grace was tasked with managing the kid crowd, which she thought was super cool until about five minutes into the party. She soon understood what a big job that was! While we all spent shifts chasing toddlers, we had a great time having (almost) everyone all together to celebrate our many, many blessings. (At the top of that thankful list is that Amy didn’t kill me when Cressey bit Archer over a toy. Ugh. #toddlerproblems)

Snapchat: The only way I am able to talk HG into taking a pic these days

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Darby and Mary Mason are here!

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Best sis pic I could get

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Professional grazers

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The cooks

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Poor William

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Cressey just wasn’t having it

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The Jackson crew sent us a picture challenge of all of them jumping in the air at their Thanksgiving get together. They asked us to send one back. This was Spiffer’s idea of how we felt at the end of our party. HG said this was also a good representation of how she felt after wrangling babies.

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