A Litchfield Thanksgiving!

Well sorry it's been so long since our last blog post but Austin and I have just been enjoying our little break from school and work! We were able to travel back to Litchfield for a week and enjoy time with family and friends :) Luckily I took lots of pictures to capture our time there.

One of the first things Austin wanted to do in Litchfield was go "picking" out at his grandma's house. There are just so many treasures that Austin remembers as a kid. One of his favorites are all the tractors his grandpa collected. He was planning on taking some but then realized we don't really have a place to put them other than the closet so he decided to wait for another time.

Austin with one of his favorite tractors 

 Showing Makalya all the cool toys

I on the other hand found a treasure of my own and was able to talk Austin into carrying it back on the plane with us. It was an old, antique mirror. Once I get it cleaned and find a place to put it I will post a picture :)

After our trip to grandma's we had to make a stop at Rural King! I had heard many stories of the famous Rural King but had never had the privilege of going there myself. They even serve free popcorn when you walk in the door!

Sunday we went to church with the family and spent the rest of the day hanging out. While hanging out at Wade and Debbie's house the boys wanted to have an arm wrestling contest. It must be a guy thing... 

Monday Diane and Steve took us to the St. Louis zoo! I haven't been to the zoo in forever but the great thing about the St. Louis zoo is that it's free and not lame like the Utah zoo haha. We had so much fun looking at all the animals. 

Everyone at the zoo

 Hanging with Brooklyn on the drive down

Once we got back to Litchfield Jason, Nell, Austin and I went to see the new Harry Potter! I was extremely excited and liked the movie, Austin on the other hand was just nice enough to go with me :) On the way to the movie we had heard there were bad storms coming our way. Well when we got out of the movie the storm had arrived, and it was bad. We thought we could wait for a break and then run to the car that was only 10 feet away from us. We waited a few seconds, thought the break had arrived, made a run for it and realized that was a bad idea. We were instantly soaked. But that didn't stop us from meeting up with Steve and Diane at pizza man for dinner! 

Soaking wet at Pizza Man

 Maklayla playing games at Pizza Man

When we arrived home from pizza man we found Wade and Debbie wrapping presents. Wade was especially thrifty in making two small boxes out of a bigger box :) What would we do without him!? 

The rest of the week was spent enjoying our time with each other. Austin had an especially fun time playing football with his brother and dad, and playing with his nieces!

Austin is the one standing all alone while Wade and Jason plot against him

Austin loving his time with Brooklyn and Makayla (I can tell he misses being so far away from them)

Thursday was the big day. Thanksgiving! We celebrated the day at Steve and Diane's house. Steve went all out and deep fried the Thanksgiving turkey. It was actually really good and there were no fires!

Austin and I on Thanksgiving

Me with the nieces! (Excuse the glasses, I lost one of my contacts the day before and had to wear glasses on Thanksgiving. Not my happiest moment)

 Austin playing pool with his brother

 We even had a little bit of snow on Thanksgiving :D 

 After the Thanksgiving dinner we all sat around and listened to Greg tell his famous stories :D Good times!

 And of course it wouldn't be a party without a game of Settlers 

We had such a fun time with everyone that we were sad to leave the next day. But since our flight didn't leave until that night we still had time to experience Black Friday shopping with Wade and Debbie. Ashley had her first experience with power tools...

and Austin found the most expensive massage chair to sit in while everyone else shopped. Typical haha

Overall it was an awesome Thanksgiving break and we enjoyed every minute of our time with family!

Fall Fun!

So finals are over, fall is here and this time next week we will be in Litchfield, IL!! Life couldn't get any better. Austin finished off his semester strong which means these next two weeks he gets to do some major relaxing (i.e. watching football, sitting on the couch all day, playing xbox) while I have to work.... but only for a few more days and then it's off to Illinois for Thanksgiving!

To celebrate Austin finishing his finals I took him shopping for some much needed church clothes and then we went out to eat at Famous Daves. It was soooo good to have something other than pasta!

Last night I could totally tell a difference in Austin. Usually he is always worried about getting home to study some more but last night he was up for anything! It's great!

I also mentioned how fall is here. I thought I would show the difference between fall clothes I wear in Arizona compared to what I would normally be wearing this time of year.

Ok so that may have been an exaggeration but you get the point haha Although it is a bit chilly when we wake up in the morning (this is due to the fact that Austin refuses to be one of those people who use the heat in Arizona) it warms up to the perfect temperature during the day. I'm not gonna lie I'm kind of getting nervous to go back to Illinois for fear that I will freeze to death because I am no longer use to the cold weather, but I guess we will have to see how that goes :) Until then...

Crafty Take 2

Happy Fall!! I can't believe it is already November... It definitely doesn't feel like November down here but then again I'm not complaining. I will get my cold fix when we go back to Illinois for Thanksgiving and Texas for Christmas.

So these next two weeks are finals for Austin. As if medical school wasn't stressful enough finals are worse. My girls group even decided to plan an activity every day next week instead of our usual Wednesday activity just so that we won't die of neglect and our husbands won't feel so bad about neglecting us haha even with that and a job I still find myself with lots of free time so my latest project is making flower necklaces, headbands and corsages :D It is so fun and I don't even need a sewing machine! Just my trusty hot glue gun and some fun fabric! So here are a few of the things I've made this week.

 This necklace I made for a friends birthday :D 

The headband is definitely my favorite right now :D I need to branch out and pick some different color fabrics but you just can't go wrong with black, red and white!