Weekly Happenings - 11/2 - 11/8

1.  Since I left off the last post with the big Royals win, I wanted to include some of my favorite pictures found around the Internet celebrating a world series win, 30 years in the making!!  The city continues to be so fired up about the Royals - it is so great to see the excitement all around!!

2.  On Monday, Garrison had his karate belt testing and he completed his yellow belt testing and received his orange belt.  He had to state the rules, show his self defense move and kick a board to break it.  He was pretty timid with the other parents in the room but we are proud of his accomplishment!!!

3.  On Tuesday, pretty much every major school district cancelled school so that those that wanted to go to the parade to celebrate the World Series could.  Since we aren't the type of people that love watching a parade with 800,000 of our closest friends :), Chad volunteered to keep Peyton at home with a couple of her friends for the morning and Hailey's mom agreed to keep them in the afternoon.  There was drama (as there likely always will be with girls!) but all in all they had a fun day playing, crafting, watching a movie, playing outside and being together!

4.  On Thursday morning, Chad & I drove down to Big Cedar Lodge for a getaway weekend and it was just what the Dr. ordered.  We have both been very busy with work the last several months so we were thrilled to both get away from work for 4 days and to spend time together.  We started our trip off with lunch at Lambert's on the way down (tasty!) then it was time to move straight into relaxing with a trip to the spa.  We had a two-hour body scrub / massage in a couple's room with a wood burning fireplace.  It was amazing!  Then we were able to spend the rest of the afternoon in the spa at the Grotto (warm pool area basically) before heading to our cabin in the woods with room service for dinner.  It poured rain that night so we had a quiet night but it was great.  On Friday, we spent much of our day at Top of the Rock where we toured the grounds and a 4-story cave via a golf cart - so fun and the views were beautiful!  The tour ended at the Osage History Museum which was a 35K sq. ft. museum about the Ozarks - very cool!  Friday night we enjoyed dinner at the Osage Restaurant and the food (and view!) were spectacular!!  Chad enjoyed elk while I had salmon - both were equally fantastic.  Then on Saturday, we started our day with a trip to the outlet malls for a little kid free shopping and then we spent some time on the grounds of the resort checking things out and then heading to dinner at Top of the Rock again, this time at Arnie's Barn.  Sunday we woke up and got ready to head out with a quick stop at the Buffalo Ridge golf course for a peek before it was time to head home and pick-up the kids.  We had a fantastic time and am so very glad we had these few days to relax and enjoy!!

5.  While we were away, Grammy & Grandpa kept the kids out of trouble (we think!).  They came up to stay with the kids on Thursday night and Friday since Peyton had school and Garrison had a field trip.  I think the kids had fun with Grammy & Grandpa staying at their house and getting to have breakfast at McDonald's on Friday before heading to school!  Friday was a pretty normal course of business kind of day but they had a great time and left for Grammy & Grandpa's shortly after school was out.  Saturday they kept busy with a couple of trips to playgrounds and to the bank to help Grandpa with some business he needed to wrap-up while Grammy was away at a meeting.  Peyton had so much fun on the monkey bars that she managed to blister her hand from going across so many times!  Later on Saturday, the kids took a trip to Miss Kelly's farm (Grammy's friend) to go searching for turtle shells and they found 4!  They also stopped at another friend's farm to see their goat, rabbits, cows and calves before heading home for dinner.  Sounds like a busy day!  Their time away wrapped-up on Sunday before we picked them up with a trip to church (with donuts of course!) and some fun time outside playing games and flying kites.  They were so exhausted from their fun that they slept most of the way home!