Weekend-Before-Thanksgiving Recap

Hooray! It's Monday!!!

That means my family will be rolling into town in a couple of days,

and we'll all be together for Thanksgiving this year.

♥

Oh how I love the thought of a work week with two and a half days, then the remainder spent hanging with my family. We were busy this weekend taking care of a few things around the house. Come on over, I'll show you...

When we bought this house a year ago the backyard was a blank slate. Actually, it was worse than a blank slate - it was a mess that needed to be cleaned up to the state of "blank slate" and then made into something awesome. Anyway, there's one last piece of unfinished ground that we still can't decide what to do with, so Doug spent part of his birthday smoothing it out and temporarily covering it with astro-turf.

We went out for a nice birthday dinner for Doug, and afterwards celebrated with Carrie's annual German chocolate birthday cake. Mass amounts of calories were consumed yesterday, and I'm kind of glad I'll be at work all day so I won't be tempted by this again today:

This is my favorite time of year in Arizona, and we really enjoy eating outside on our patio. We had a light lunch of quesadillas outside, and talked about table set-up plans for this Thursday. The forecast is for beautiful weather, so we'll be having our Thanksgiving dinner outdoors. {Please, Mother Nature? Pleeeeease?}

Quick story: A little over seven years ago, just a few weeks before our wedding, Doug and I were in the mountains riding his quad when he spotted an elk antler on the side of the dirt road we were on {elk shed their antlers and grow a new pair every year}. Based on the size of it, I knew the elk would have probably tried to shake the other one off {these things are heavy, and once one falls off the animal will sometimes shake until the other comes off too} and sure enough, not far from the antler that Doug found was the other one that I got to find.

I love the story of these antlers and of our day out riding, and I'm so happy to finally have them displayed in our home. Anyway, there was a particular way I wanted these hung, and this weekend was try-number-two because I wasn't happy with the way they went up last weekend. I know, go ahead and say it, Poor Doug. I'll admit, the man is a saint. ♥

And meanwhile in another nature related saga, is the box turtle who refuses to go to sleep for the winter. We've made every effort to provide a comfortable hibernating environment, some soft dirt to burrow in, and this boy just isn't buying it. I suppose he's confused by the warm days/cold nights.

And because I don't want to end my weekend recap with a photo of our turtle's rear end, here's a little garden shot for you. :o)



And now I'm off to do my best at concentrating at work for the next couple of days! I imagine I'll be somewhat distracted ~ but in a good way. It's going to be such a fun week at our place. Here's wishing each of you a bit of the same.

Happy Thanksgiving Week!

♥