Hi friends! It has been awhile since I did a random all over the place check in post, so I thought today might be a good time to do so!
Before I get into today’s post, in case you’re looking for any Thanksgiving recipe inspiration for later this week, here are some posts that may be of interest: Best Healthy Thanksgiving recipes, and also Recipe Ideas for Thanksgiving Leftovers.
And don’t forget about my Fall Sangria (the most popular recipe on my site for the last couple months by a long shot), or my Simple Small Charcuterie Board if you’re looking for a fun appetizer idea!
Matt and I are spending Thanksgiving with his family this year, and will be staying at a rental house a couple hours west of DC in Virginia. We’ll also be celebrating Riese’s 6th (!!) birthday on Friday – time flies!
And now, a teaser for some future posts: Matt and I actually spent last week on a scuba diving vacation in Belize! We’d been waiting for this trip for ages and couldn’t believe it was finally here. It was amazing, we had the BEST time.
I’ll share a couple full blog post recaps from our trip soon, but we just got back this weekend and I need a little more time to sort through all the photos and organize everything into coherent posts! So stay tuned for those, coming sometime in December.
Matt’s parents stayed at our house and watched the kids while we were away, and we’re incredibly grateful to them. It sounds like everyone had a really nice time and things went smoothly, which was great!
We got to enjoy one dinner all together before Matt and I left, and we ended up having chicken soup – Matt’s dad always makes a really delicious soup, and this one was no exception! Plus some great crusty French bread.
This soup variation included orzo, dill, onion, carrot, celery, and rotisserie chicken. It was quite good! And speaking of soup, if you haven’t tried my Turkey Rice Soup yet, bookmark it for when you have leftover Thanksgiving turkey! Or you can make it with rotisserie chicken, too.
In other news, the kids were SO into Halloween decorations this year! We took a ton of walks around the neighborhood to enjoy them.
Del Ray (the area where we live) really goes all out for Halloween, and both the kids loved trick or treating, too. A far cry from last year when Riese was super sick on Halloween and Wes was terrified of the whole thing!
We’ve also been really enjoying the gorgeous fall weather with some hikes, and I’ve been doing more running than I did this summer (but sticking with a few miles max at a time at the moment because we’ve been so busy I don’t need to tire my body out).
One of the biggest updates that I have for you is that Wes got his first haircut last month (insert crying emoji here). I had been dragging my feet on it big time because I loved his baby curls so much, but it was honestly really annoying him because it was in his eyes all the time, and half the time he’d have paint or food in it… and he wouldn’t let me put a hair tie in it.
So, it was time. Matt tried to take him to the barber shop awhile ago but Wes freaked out and wouldn’t let the hairstylist near him (I mean, fair – stranger with scissors? I get that that’s kinda unsettling if you are 2 and don’t understand what’s happening).
So, Matt decided to take care of the situation at home himself, and while I was on the train coming home from my Asheville trip, he sent me the below photo of the “barber shop” he set up in our basement (with the TV on to keep Wes in one spot). I gave him the okay to proceed although it kinda broke my heart to know Wes’s curls would be gone.
Matt sent me some after pictures while I was on the train and I was literally crying over them. I swear having his hair cut aged him about 2 years – he looks like such a big boy now. Where did my little baby go?!
He seems happy about the situation, and Matt did do a good job. I’m just glad school picture day happened before his hair cut. We got the photos back recently and they are amazing, and Riese said: “Look mama, now you can remember his curls!” Sweet girl.
We took a family adventure over to one of our favorite local spots, Huntley Meadows, the other weekend to take advantage of the gorgeous fall weather. The kids love this place and so do we!
We found a turtle!
Wes also enjoyed sprinting down the boardwalk and making me terrified he’ll fall into the water – ah, motherhood, not for the faint of heart…
Anyway, I don’t have much else to share in this super random post except that I am now on book 8 (!!) of the Zodiac Academy series (Amazon affiliate link) and totally obsessed (and hot tip all the books are on Kindle Unlimited for free). Trigger warning for bullying, and just FYI it’s quite spicy, but it’s SO action packed and entertaining and I can’t stop!
When Matt and I weren’t scuba diving in Belize we did a lot of lounging and reading with water views (he was reading Dave Grohl’s memoir, The Storyteller: Tales of Life and Music (Amazon affiliate link)).
I will leave you with a photo of some ceviche from Belize – I ate a lot of ceviche while there and it was definitely one of the food highlights of the trip!
Have a great week, all!
