Merry Christmas!

 

Merry Christmas! I can't believe Christmas has already come and gone! This year went by way too fast. We had a good Christmas overall and are preparing our New Year's Resolutions. Toni and I both want to start training for a half marathon so hopefully 2022 will be a good year. I missed posting last week but I'm going to try my best to maintain the weekly schedule. I hope everyone had a great Christmas and has a safe and Happy New Year!

Happy 11th Birthday Emma!

This week we celebrated Emma's 11th birthday! On Friday we took her to lunch at Olive Garden with Grampa and then to Sea World at night with some of her friends from school. The park was done up for Christmas and looked really nice. Emma had a great time hanging out with her friends and I think she had a great day. On Saturday we had family over for a spaghetti dinner which was very good. Overall it was a great birthday celebration. She got some nice gifts and will be using some of her gift cards to get some stuff that she's been wanting. My friend's wife made her a beautiful cake that was very good as well! I know I say it every year but I really can't believe she's 11. It seems like the years are passing way too quick.

Home Sweet Home

 This post is a little late this week but I wanted to share some big news. Last Tuesday, we hit a major milestone and paid off our mortgage! We had started really going after it when Covid first hit with the idea that since we weren't going to have to pay for daycare that we should spend that money on the house. We also both wanted to have the security of not having a mortgage and I think it's going to free us up to do big things in the future. It was a long process that but in the end, it was so worth it. 

Last week Toni took the girls to the mall with Cousin Maddie. They had a good time. Caitlin and her friend like to dress up (cosplay) as their favorite anime characters. They look cool and this time someone even asked to take pictures with them! Toni also had an office Christmas party downtown over the weekend. My office party has been cancelled this year due to Covid/Delta/Omicron.. 

Emma has been doing a lot of art and has already filled another sketchbook in about a week. The picture above is one that she did of Toni. She's got a lot of talent for art and I hope she sticks with it. 

Happy Thanksgiving!

Happy Thanksgiving! This week I took Tuesday and Wednesday off. Me and the girls had a good time. We went to the mall and had a good time. We had a great Thanksgiving. This weekend we also did a lot of decorating around the house and it looks really nice. I'm glad we got to get a lot done. Having the house decorated makes me really happy. :) I wish we could have more time off like this. This week unfortunately we're back to work and school. 

Flu Shot!

Saturday me and Emma went to CVS and got our Flu shot. Emma did great and I am so proud of her! Afterwards we went and got some lunch and went to Barnes and Noble where she got a couple of Anime books. After we were done, we came home and watched a couple episodes of Street Hawk. Toni had taken Caitlin and her friend to the movies where they also had a great time. Later on that night, we all went to Ingram Mall and walked around and had dinner. We had a great day and I'm thankful for days like that. Yesterday we just stayed around the house. This week I am working on Monday and then am off for the rest of the week for Thanksgiving. I'm looking forward to the time off and family time.

Cleaning the Patio

 

This week was fairly quiet. Last night me and Toni watched Shang-Chi which was fun. Today we went to breakfast and then stopped at a couple of garage sales. Didn't find too much but we had a good time. After we got home, Caitlin pressure washed the rest of the back patio. It looks really nice and she did a good job. Hopefully this week is quiet. 

A Week With Ups and Downs

This week was an interesting week. Halloween was fun. Caitlin went and hung out with her friend and Toni and I went with Emma and her friends and their parents trick-or-treating. We had a good time. I was off on Monday and Tuesday. On Monday I took the girls to see Shang Chi. It was a fun movie and I had a good time hanging out with the girls. On Tuesday one of the supply lines on our water heater broke. We had to turn off the water and didn't get hot water back until Wednesday night. At least we still had cold water so we were able to use toilets. Friday during lunch I took Caitlin to an urgent care so she could get the Flu mist vaccine. Since she hates needles, the mist is a better option. I had offered the girls $25 if they wanted to get the shot. Caitlin declined but Emma wants to get the shot for the $25. My goal with giving them money is that I want the memories associated with shots to be good ones. I figure if after a shot we go to the mall or something and they have money to spend, maybe they won't associate shots with bad memories. Emma and I will probably go to CVS on day this week to get ours. 

On Saturday we went to breakfast and then stopped at a car show at the high school. It was cool to see the classic cars. Emma was more interested in them than Caitlin and I had good time bonding with Emma and with the family just spending time together. Today we started decorating for Christmas. We've got some stuff put in the back yard and hopefully we can do a little each day this week. 

Happy 50th Birthday Toni!

This week we celebrated Toni's 50th birthday! Considering she had just turned 29 right before we met, the fact that we're celebrating her 50th birthday is unbelievable. We had a great day celebrating. We took her to Demo's Greek for lunch and then went to the mall and spent time together. Later in the day we went to Sea World and walked around for a while and enjoyed the Halloween party. Yesterday we continued celebrating by going to the pumpkin patch. We hadn't gone out there in a couple years because of Covid and it was nice to get back out. After that, we went to the community park in the neighborhood and setup the projector and watched Casper. Several of Caitlin and Emma's friends from school were there and they seemed to have fun playing, watching the movie and having pizza. I hope with it getting darker earlier that we'll be able to start watching movies in the back yard soon. The other thing to report this week is that Caitlin got her braces off! I think she looks beautiful with or without them. Surprisingly, she wasn't very excited to be getting them off. She said she liked having them. We'll see if she changes her mind as time goes on. I am glad we were able to have fun for Toni's birthday and I look forward to celebrating many more with her.