Week 13: Thanksgiving and More

Week 13 was spotty, both literally and figuratively. Since our family traveled to Florida to visit family for Thanksgiving (which was wonderful!), I have not had the time to prepare the house for the holiday season as I normally would. The house is in a serious state of "spotty." Then, for two days this week Dad was home for a dental appointment and a normal day off, so the schedule was definitely "spotty."

Nevertheless, we did get some good work on fundamentals done. We also had a wonderful opportunity to prepare our thoughts for our study on WWII which we will begin after Christmas. While we were in Florida, Matty spent a wonderful time with his granddad, interviewing him and asking him all about his life. We learned some wonderful history about our family, and captured it in a recording. Being Japanese and having experienced some very difficult circumstances during the war, they lived a life that is extremely difficult for the kids to imagine.

They also enjoyed doing some gardening with their grandparents. They have a wonderful variety of vegetables and things that came originally from Okinawa, so we got a bit of an education, there as well. They dug up purple potatoes and got very dirty.

Got one!

Purple sweet potatoes!

There were some lovely giant worms

Wow. Dirty fingernails.

We also got a bit of beach time in which is always good for the soul. I didn't take as many photos there as I normally do--I just thought a lot and looked for shells. The drive down and back were highlights for me. The kids had the iPad and their movies in the back of the car, and hubby and I had a total of 32 hours of conversation time (16 down, 16 back). We did not listen to books, music, sermons or podcasts very much at all. We mostly enjoyed each others company and talked. We had time to process through a whole lot of things we've been thinking, make some important family decisions, and dream a little. Out of those conversations a new blog was born, and I am enjoying that new pursuit. I mentioned it in a previous post, but The Accidental Crossfitter is up and going very well so far.

So that is my wrap-up of the past two weeks. I am not sure what we are going to do this week--I may need to take another week off in order to clean, decorate, bake and take the kids shopping. I would rather do it now than at Christmas "crunch time." We'll see what happens.