Monday: Enjoying the outdoors day.
Almost every time my parents come we hit the Savannah River. The kids have to check on our locks on the bridge and then we all get a nice walk in beautiful scenery. 
Getting Harvey to hold still for a picture is a battle. 
After our walk we hit Mellow Mushroom. It was delicious! 
Since my kids won’t get to go to Utah for Christmas, we decided to let them open their presents from Grandma and Grandpa early. 
Harvey got a new shirt from grandma and grandpa. He has already worn it twice. It was definitely a good pick for him!
I’m not sure who ended the week more exhausted. We packed in a lot! On Monday we had planned to go to the zoo, but Beverly wasn’t feeling well, so we packed up the stroller and enjoyed the beautiful day at the Savannah River. She was happy to just sit in the stroller and relax. Afterwards we ate lunch at the Mellow Mushroom before heading to the downtown bookstore: Book Tavern. It was recommended by some friends. I guess we do have a Barnes and Nobles in the mall, but this was a much cooler experience. It was an old building and had antique books as well as a decent selection of new ones. Grandma is a huge fan of reading, and grandpa will do anything to promote our kids’ education, so they wanted one of their gifts to be a book (an annual tradition). Maverick managed to convince Beverly and Harvey to get books that he thought would be cool to borrow once in a while, but Beverly definitely wanted the “Legend of Zelda” comic for herself. It is kind of cool, because you have to read it from right to left, starting at the back of the book because it is originally Japanese made. Harvey picked out two Star Wars books by Jeffrey Brown and Maverick picked two more of them. Max picked out two DogMan books– his favorite graphic novel series. Even Andy picked one out for me to get him for Christmas. I have been more into audible so I can still fold laundry, paint, or do what I need to do while enjoying novels. I have really been loving Brandon Sanderson’s books. I’m currently listening to the fifth book in the Mistborn series. If you want to try Brandon Sanderson out, I HIGHLY recommend Warbreaker. It is my favorite book of his, and he is quite the exceptional writer.
Tuesday: Rainy inside day.
Since it rained all day Tuesday, it was the perfect day to stay inside. Grandma treated Beverly to a mani/pedi. Beverly still wasn’t feeling great, but she thoroughly enjoyed the spa treatment. I have a feeling she’ll be asking for me to take her back. They even had pedicure chairs just her size.
After Spa day, we headed home, had some leftovers for lunch and went to the movies with Papa. He treated the kids to a movie, “Trolls: Band together.” It was a cute flick with fun music. My kids really wanted to go see it, and the alternative kid shows were Wish, a supposedly “woke” film from Disney, and PawPatrol. I think we all preferred Trolls to the other two. Even dad was laughing throughout the film and I think some of the 70 songs that they included were a nice nostalgic moment for him. I don’t think mom would’ve enjoyed the movie as much, she’s not as into “Pop” genre as my dad is.
Wednesday:Beverly’s birthday and Zoo day.
Despite not feeling great, she still enjoyed the zoo. In fact, we would’ve skipped it because she was sick, but it was her birthday and she insisted. 
One of my kids’ favorite past times is visiting the zoo. Any zoo. Houston, Hogle, and now Riverbanks. I have yet to brave the Atlanta Zoo (traffic), but we should probably make our way there eventually. 
I think my love for the zoo started with my parents’ love for the zoo. I remember going to the Atlanta Zoo only a couple of times, but we almost always went to the Hogle zoo when we visited our extended family. It is one of my favorite memories of going to the zoo with cousins in Utah. 
Even Andy loves the zoo. This is him with about 3 and a half hours of sleep post night shift. Despite that, he had a smile on most of the day. He loves seeing his kids at the zoo. 
Harvey was so excited to feed the birds this time. He had to learn how to be gentle as he pushed the cups of juice up to the birds so that they wouldn’t get startled and fly away. 
You can see here, he finally figured it out. He started drooling at one point because he was so concentrated. You can see from his smile here that he really loved interacting with the animals at this level. 
Harvey likes to pretend he’s a turtle and pulls his limbs and head into his shirt. Thank goodness he has a never ending supply of shirts to wear out… 
Andy treated the family to popcorn. 
You can see from this picture that the bag was nearly the same size as Harvey, but that didn’t deter him from thinking he had his very own bag. 
Bev hung out in the stroller a fair amount because she still wasn’t feeling great. 
It is amazing how much a carousel rocks me these days. I don’t know if it is because I have been pregnant four times or just my age, but I get awfully dizzy these days. 
Mav is always up for a photoshoot. 
The three oldest tried to climb the wall. Maverick made it to the top, but none of us saw it because we were on the other side trying to get Max to be brave enough to try it. Poor middle child. We’re still proud of him though. 
Harvey should live on Papa and grandma Jackson’s farm. He is in serious heaven around ALL animals. 
One of the goats tried to eat Beverly’s cute little skirt. Maverick said, “Why would he eat wool? It’s like he’s eating himself?” I guess it’s kind of like the type of people that like to eat hair… 
Everyone got a kick out of feeding the giraffes with their long slimy tongues. 
Maverick’s favorite animal right now is a turtle (which is why his main present is a little pet turtle named Cherry.
For more details of our zoo day, read the captions in the slideshow. We are all huge fans of zoos. We have a really nice zoo in Columbia, South Carolina that allows us to interact with the animals on a more personal level. We can feed Lorikeets, Giraffes, and pet the goats (and one chicken). They used to allow you to feed the Alpacas, sheep, and goats in the petting zoo area, but haven’t brought it back since COVID. They have a little train that is more like a tram, but we skipped that today. It wasn’t train enough to entice Papa. To be honest, it’s kind of a bumpy ride and uncomfortable in those tiny train cars, so I was fine skipping it. The kids will most likely make me do it next time. One of their favorite places is the new Reptile exhibit. They have a wide variety of lizards, snakes, turtles, fish, frogs, and more. We had a very full and fun day at the zoo and left a bit tired. We ended up hitting horrible traffic due to a truck catching fire on the road. It set us back an entire hour, so we were all a little haggard and hangry by the time we got home. We grabbed McDonalds for the kids (Beverly’s request) and Chinese for us.
Thursday: Thanksgiving Feast
As you can see, we did not run out of food. 
We had our lovely friends, the Woods over for Thanksgiving. Stephanie’s mom and dad moved into the area recently and our parents hit it off! 
We really didn’t need dinner, but we hadn’t eaten since 2, so a smaller plate of food satisfied us from this array of goodness. 
My kids will really miss their grandparents. Maverick cried after they left and Harvey has been talking about them. 
Harvey told my dad, “I like you” after playing with him one evening.
We invited our friends, the Woods, and her parents over for Thanksgiving dinner. We would’ve invited all of our huge friend group, but we knew that would overwhelm my parents (and us). We had great food and great company. However, Logan threw up right after dinner. We’re not sure if he had a stomach bug or just from all the flem he was struggling with (and his mom shoving ibuprofen down his throat). They rushed him home and came back (grandpa stayed behind to listen for the sleeping toddler). We had a good time chatting, eating, and playing games. I was very happy that my mom and Steph’s mom got along so well. They were all really lovely. It was just a bummer that Bev and Logan weren’t feeling great (and that I forgot to take very many pictures).
Family Pictures
Andy didn’t love this pose, but it captured a very common occurrence at our home. One of the boys favorite pastimes is wrestling with their dad. 
One of the best pictures of Harvey, but he’s looking at me instead of the camera. At least you can see the love in his eyes. 
Had to capture our lovely babysitter. Curly haired-twinners. 
We got our family pictures back already. We sure do love this crazy bunch. I think Stephanie Secrist did a fabulous job, especially at capturing our kids’ personalities!