A Grateful 9 days

We have had 9 days off work. Two of the days were furlough days (we lost 1.5% of our salaries this year, and have an additional furlough day January 2). Although the pay cut wasn't much appreciated, the past 9 days with my boys have been exactly what we needed :)

We spent the first few days hanging out here at the house, getting ready for Thanksgiving and relaxing. Cayle had a chance to play in the snow a little bit (small snowstorm). He's getting more used to snow, but is a bit scared of it!
On our way to Colorado Springs on Wednesday, we had a pit-stop at the Dr's office to have our ultrasound. Cayle enjoyed seeing the baby, and kept on saying, "mommy, daddy, baby" over and over again. We didn't get many good profile shots of the baby because it is transverse (laying across me, not up and down). But we did see the baby moving lots, which I had wondered about since I haven't felt it moving much at all. The dr called later on Wednesday to let us know the ultrasound looked good, and the baby has all the working parts it needs!

We had a really good time spending Thanksgiving with Ronnie, Michelle, Ethan, Lexi, and Michelle's parents - Ron and Marge. The meal was a big success! We had some relax time after the big meal. Then we took Cayle to a park across the street from Ronnie's house where we played on the playground equipment and shot some hoops on the basketball court.
On Black Friday, we headed out for a shopping trip just after 10 am. We stopped at a bicycle shop for Cayle's new Strider. That boy loved that bike! Now we have to hide it from him for a few weeks! We also had to pick up some child safety locks from Toys R Us and figured we had waited late enough for the shopping madness to die down. WRONG! The checkout line wrapped around the entire store, which pretty much eliminated any ideas Nick and I had of picking up a basketball hoop and baby doll real quick for Cayle. We had to wait about 45 minutes in the customer service line just to pick up the locks we had already ordered and paid for. The place was a zoo! We did venture to Target and Wal-Mart later in the day. I was able to score a basketball hoop for Cayle at Wal-Mart. It's safe to say Nick and I will not be shopping on Black Friday anytime soon. The rest of Friday, Nick, Ronnie, and Ron spent time dry walling the garage so that Ronnie can heat the garage. We also had an outstanding dinner of very good Mexican!

Before we left CO Springs, we had a few family photos taken...hopefully to be used in the Christmas card!
On our way home, we stopped in Golden for pizza at Woody's. Yummy! We made a seond pit-stop on the way home at Wal-Mart, still in search of a male baby doll for Cayle. We found the last little boy doll in the store! Go us! The Thanksgiving trip must have taken more of a toll on me than I knew, because once we arrived home, we got everything put away, and then we crashed. I had wanted to start putting up the Christmas decorations, but didn't move off the couch until Nick woke me and told me it was time to move up to bed.

What a great 9 days we had! Lots of time to recover from the first few months of school. Now, only three weeks until Christmas break :)

PS - There's another blog from today under this one!