It Totally Tied the Room Together

So my posts have been a bit random and trivial lately, but my life has not, so to bring everyone back up to speed, the following a a few highlights of recent.

Thanksgiving!
We all went down to Little Rock to spend the holiday with My Aunt Mardie and my Uncle Gareth and all my Arkansan cousins. The special guest was my Grandma Tobler! It was so great to see her and everyone else. The food was so so good. The drive at 3.5 hours each way was a bit long, but we all handled it better then expected. All and all, a really great holiday memory.

Family Visit
The Tuesday after thanksgiving my Aunt Mardie, Grandma Tobler, and Cousin Liz and her girls came up to visit me! It meant so much to me to have family come. I don't know why but I got it into my head that I had to paint my kitchen and dining room before they came. Poor Jeff was up late the night before helping me paint, but it turned out well. I had made a lasagna which turned out well, but when I went to the fridge to get the salad, it was gone! Jeff took it to work. I felt a bit foolish only serving Lasagna, but at least it tasted good. It was nice to get to spend more time with my family after the busy Thanksgiving.

Branson
Our friends the Messicks gave us some discount tickets to Silver Dollar City last weekend. It is a really fun amusement park in Branson (2 hours away) that has an old fashioned feel to it. The weather was cold 50 and breezy, but we all enjoyed ourselves so much. Max was just barely 36 inches the minimum to get on all the kiddie rides. He loved them so much. We spent almost all the time putting him into little ladybug, frogs, and elephants that move and bounce slightly. We all got on the tea cups (seriously I don't know how Disney hasn't sued them yet.) When I finally decided to get the funnel cake over the apple dumpling and cinnamon roll, thanks for the help deciding Lu, the funnel cake line was too long! Oh well. I also learned a good trick for hot chocolate, they put the marshmallows in the cup first, then the hot chocolate. The lights were really pretty when we left, they have an evening Christmas show, but we wanted to get home and Max doesn't sit for shows.

Rug!
Thanks to the wonderfully generous Sarah Allred, I have a new area rug in my living room. For months my furniture has been sliding around the room, but no more. The amazing thing is that it matches my living room perfectly. When I tell people I didn't pick it out, they are shocked. Almost as shocked as when I tell them it was free. It is beautiful and in really good condition (Sarah could have easily gotten 400-500 bucks for it on craig's list) and it makes my living room complete. Thank you so much Sarah.