We kicked off the month of December with the annual Groundhog Day event, or otherwise known as the firm holiday party. It was in Scottsdale and had the usual raffle prizes and casino night. I will say though that I won two prizes, the latest Nintendo Switch and $300 gift card to American Airlines. So, even though the night was on repeat for the past decade, it was still fun and I was a big winner. This is the only picture I took of the evening of us in the photo booth.
The next weekend we went to see Stevie Nicks and Billy Joel in concert at Chase Field in downtown Phoenix. I will say our seats were pretty great and seeing Stevie in concert again was amazing. Andy and I saw her about 20 years ago in Madison when we first started dating so it brought back old memories.
Then this past weekend we had our framily over for gingerbread house decorating, fondue and celebrated Stella's 14th birthday.
Our elf, Cookie, has also been visiting us this month and I will post an overview of this year's shenanigans in another post.
Max is enjoying golf lessons at least once a week and once this month I was able to go watch.
Today was the last day of school before winter break and Max had a peppermint sprint so Andy and I stopped by to cheer him on and take a couple of pics of him walking with his buddy. He's not a fan of running, but he did try a little bit he said.
Thanksgiving was last weekend and we hosted like we normally do. Andy deep-fried one turkey and smoked the other turkey. Hands down the smoked turkey was the best I ever had. Huge kudos to Andy for making such a fantastic turkey. Max was excited to inject the turkey again this year.
Grandpa and Max popped the champagne bottle.
The group photo of those who could make it.
The next day was our tradition of decking the halls with boughs of holly!
On Saturday, Andy and I decided to be young and fun and fly to Vegas to see Usher perform before his residency was up. This took me back to 1997 and I had a great time! It was just the two of us and it was a fantastic date trip. It was 10 degrees colder in Vegas than here so I had to pack a sweater.
Andy made reservations at a restaurant in Aria, and I am sorry but I can't remember the name of it, but we ordered this sashimi appetizer that came out with smoke and looked fantastic. It was spicy, but oh so good.
I will say Usher put on a fantastic show and it was fun to fly up to Vegas for 24 hours and pretend we are in our 20s again.
Max stayed with Grandpa Tim and Grandma Shelley while we were in Vegas. Grandma took Max to see a movie.
It was a nice four day weekend to celebrate the holiday and it was a super quick 24 hours in Las Vegas.
We started November off with the annual Children's Museum gala. The theme was Candyland this year and we had a lot of fun.
They had the silent disco again this year. Again, we had a blast. The thought of a silent disco sounds super lame, but it's actually a lot of fun.
For Veteran's Day there was no school and I had no work, so Max and I had a fun day together. We went to a slime store where Max got to make his own slime.
We then headed to lunch at his favorite place before we headed to Main Event for some arcade games. After Main Event I had planned to check out a macaroon shop, but Max was exhausted and was ready to go home.
Max also started golf this month and we will continue it until it gets too hot since he loves golf.
Before Thanksgiving Max's school had the annual turkey trot where they run around the school four times. Andy and I stopped in to cheer on Max.
This year is just flying by so fast. Somehow we just passed my favorite holiday, Halloween. I still love this holiday even though it looks much different in your 40s.
We did not go to one of the farms to do the fall festivities, but we did purchase a couple of pumpkins from a parking lot decked out like it was a pumpkin patch.
Andy and Max carved a pumpkin that was hand-drawn by yours truly. Max wanted to do a Boxer face on his pumpkin so I did my best at the hand-drawn portion while they cut, scooped and carved.
I also did a painted pumpkin for my firm's Halloween contest. We decided on a popcorn bucket that I painted and Max glued all the popcorn on. I told him if he participates and I win anything he can have it. Well, we got third place so he got the $25 Target gift card which he already spent on a new cookbook that he's been wanting. It's from a chef that he's been following on YouTube for a while. I was pretty impressed with this cookbook as there are a lot of good recipes and I am excited for Max to make us many meals from it.
For Halloween, we went trick-or-treating in our neighborhood with a couple of Max's good friends. Max dressed up as the Halloween version of Fish Stick, a character from Fortnite. Our neighborhood was very busy with a lot of kids. Max's friend's older brother put on a haunted house that was super cool. I thought it was cool, but it caused Max to sleep in our bed that night because it was scary.
Another Halloween has come and gone and we are now on the fast track to New Year's.
