I hope everyone has had a wonderful Thanksgiving. We opened our home to the single soldiers in Dan's unit and prepared a large feast.

Here's the bird hanging out in its brine(which turned out SOOOO good!)

 The final spread of dishes, everything was delicious!
 The dessert table
 The guests!

 The kid's table



The kids did a great job at playing in their room and letting us adults chat and play games. Some of the adults even joined in on the kids' adventures chasing monsters and running away from sharks!


 She really does smile, i promise!


Alex was going around kissing all the guests!
After everyone left Cade said he was still hungry, so we told him he could eat anything off of the main dish table that he wanted. He sat and picked at the turkey for another 30 minutes! If you know Cade at all you know this is a big deal. I don't think he's eaten any of our Thanksgiving dinners in the past 5 years.

I think we all had a really good time. We played some Apples to Apples and Taboo to help make room for more desserts. We had 13 guests in all plus our family, and we all fit!!

This was also Cade's first year with a Thanksgiving party at school. The class sang songs and hosted a feast of their own. Here's Cade in the turkey shirt I made for him and a video of his class singing.  Happy Holidays everyone!

Dan has been working A LOT lately. Have I mentioned that to any of you at all? I'm talking like full work days with gigs at night going late late late and then waking up and doing it all over again. So when Veteran's Day rolled around we were hoping for some time off, and he got a Monday off. Dan wanted to do something with the family, but Cade had school. I suggested pulling him out for a day and the plan was in action. I took advice from my friend and didn't tell the boys what was going on or we'd hear about it ALL THE TIME. So Cade woke up for school and we told him he didn't have to get ready because we were going somewhere fun!

Where did we go? Seoul Land! This was THE best decision ever because the place was empty. No lines, no crowds, just lots of fun.

Only one on the coaster!!

Now, it was pretty cold. We considered going to some of the indoor play places around town, but those cost almost as much as Seoul Land did but you only get 2 hours of play. We stayed for 6 hours.


I'm sad that my face is so goofy in this, but they had a musical merry go round. I got to ride on the french horn :)
 Seoul Land has a lot of things for the kids to do, including a whole playground with a ball pit, inflatable bounce house, trampoline, slides and a rope climbing thingamajig.
 Nice pose Cade!







While we were walking around looking for rides we came across the Tilt House. The first half of it was kind of pointless, but then you have like 4 rooms that really mess with your equilibrium!



 Dan attempting a pull up on in a slanted (black light) room!
The only drawback to no crowds was that not very many restaurants and snack vendors were open. We did find this lunch place that was 'fast food fusion'. That at least meant there were some chicken tenders for the kids. Dan had a pork cutlet dish common in Korea called Donkassu, and I had a pasta carbanera thing.

While we were eating Cade discovered that a ball from the ball pit had stowed away in his hood. This picture is priceless!
 Another kid's play area was this giant white tarp/tent thing. Slippery and fun!


This next picture is from the log flume ride. (Yes, it was cold and we still went on the water ride, twice) As you go around the corner you see this pirate with water and immediately you are worried that you're going to get soaked. And then you look closer and realize where that water is coming from!!!

 I love the look on Alex's face as she was buckling him in, like "Don't touch me!"




Look how strong I am!



And another Korean gem. Thanks for coming on our adventure with us!