A trip to Williamsburg-Christmas Town at Busch Gardens

After the winery tour we got some amazing barbeque and watched the end of the Michigan game before bundling up and heading to Busch Gardens for Christmas Town.  They turn the whole park into a Christmas wonderland of lights, music and decorations. We walked around, rode the train, rode the sky ride, watched Gloria (a musical nativity show) and drank LOTS of hot chocolate. After the park closed we grabbed a pizza before heading to bed. Sunday was heading home and back to reality Monday morning.  Was a great weekend together.





Trip to Williamsburg-A Winery Tour

 Back in Oct. at the Oyster Festival we won 2 free nights at a fancy resort so after Logan finished work on Black Friday we headed to Williamsburg for a weekend getaway. Our room/condo was beyond amazing and we had a great weekend of hanging out, shopping, and doing some sight seeing stuff. One of the things we did was take a tour of the Williamsburg Winery. It was a lots of fun. We got to see wine is made and then try 7 or 8 different wines. Word to the wise don't go wine tasting on an empty stomach. :) Then we picked up a couple bottles we'll break out for Christmas. Here are some pictures of the tour.



Trying wines

Trying wines

Trying the last wine

red wine barrels

bottle museum

white wine barrels

filtering machine



white wine

cooling containers

 

Thanksgiving 2013

Happy Thanksgiving! Once again this year we hosted Thanksgiving for our friends who like us weren't able to travel to be with their families or their families didn't come to visit them. It was a lot of fun with a total of nine people, an almost 20 pound turkey, two HUGE pans of mashed potatoes, a double batch of stuffing and 5 pies. Not to mention sweet potato casserole, green bean casserole, rolls, and cranberries. Oh and we can't forget the veggies and dip and a punch bowl of sangria that we enjoyed while watching football before dinner! We shook things up and did appetizers and football down in the Michigan room and set up tables in the living room for eating. Worked great! After everyone but our two overnight guests left Logan and I braved the crowds and did a quick trip to Target. We were there and back in 30mins with what we wanted. I would have to say not too bad. So here are some pictures from our fun day. Excited to continue this tradition and maybe add more friends next year!



Oscar the Great thawing

Logan making his mashed potatoes

Working on the
stuffing

Getting the turkey ready

STUFFING!



In the oven!

Yummy Sangria!



Table set and ready

All done! YUMMY!



All of our food

The gang!

A Weekend in Illinois

Over the weekend we headed to Illinois for a quick weekend trip to attend my cousin Tim's wedding. While we were there we got to do a belated 5th birthday celebration for the girls, hang out with Sarah, Kurt, and my parents, visit Grandma Cooley and then visit with the Mandel side of the family at the wedding. As always it was great to see everyone and get to spend time with my family. I miss them and always look forward to when I get to see them. Here are some pictures from the weekend. I'm not going to post too many as Sarah & I have the same ones and I want to leave some for her. :) For whatever reason we didn't take too many.

Giving Grandma the small Christmas tree
Grandpa gave me for my dorm room
freshman year of college. I have used it every
year since and now she can put it in her room.

Us with Grandma Cooley



The girls with their new
slippers and Rebekah's new
shirt



Getting ready to open their presents



Abigail's new dress & leggings

Us with Grandpa & Grandma Mandel

Dancing with Rebekah

Logan & Grandma

Logan being an awesome uncle and
playing Barbies with the girls.

I was quickly replaced by Buns
as Rebekah's dance partner.