Thanksgiving Break Adventures

Nels and the kids had the whole week off!!  Once we all got used to each other, we had a pretty good time and made some fun memories.  

We went on two adventures...

First, was to Stone River Battlefield, Visitor Center and cemetery, right here in Murfreesboro.  

We learned a lot about this battle that took place during a cold December during the Civil War.  

Inside the visitor center we watched a video about the battle and read about it too.  Conclusion, war is sad.  

There was a trail around the area too.  So we took a short walk.

Pretty area, especially as the sun was setting.

See the deer!

We also stopped by a little park.

Our second outing was to Henry Horton State Park.  Nels really wanted to have a fire and cook some food.  So we made it happen.  Henry Horton was a great place.  Playgrounds, hiking and some animals to see and a fire pit.

I took Sofie, Noah and Kira to the playground while Isak and Nels got the fire going.

Of course, I took pictures while we waited for the fire.

Here's Nels manhandling some wood around.  :)

Nels realized he forgot the sticks to cook the hot dogs and marshmallows.  So we improvised.  We made grilled cheese and hot dogs on top of tin foil over the grate that was over the fire.  They turned out great.  The kids all said it was the best food ever.  Haha.  I think they were just really hungry by the time we got to eat. 

We even made the s'mores over the tin foil too.

The boys definitely loved the fire too.

After we ate and cleaned up, we went for a nice hike along the Duck River.

Noah's face in this pic craps me up...

Pose Becky...haha.

We did the Wetland Trail.  There was a rainbow in the sky the whole time we hiked!  It was magical.

Isak wanted to try to take a pic where he squishes the kids...

And there's Noah in between his fingers...

We climbed the observation tower.

Just trying to capture that rainbow.

Kira scratched her name into the wood.

💛

I'm glad we got to go on these two outings.

Thanksgiving.

We put up a gratitude tree.  We wrote things down that we were thankful for on the leaves.

We finished making our Christmas tags.

The kids enjoyed coloring this huge tablecloth while they waited for Thanksgiving dinner.

Tried to get a pic of us before eating...

Thanks to Costco we had a nice dinner.  Turkey, dressing, mashed potatoes, green beans, rolls.  We also grilled some corn and had fruit salad.  

Then we tried to play Capture the Flag...but there were a lot of meltdowns as we learned how to play together.

After naps, we went to our friends house and ate lots of pie and played some games.  Nels made Black Forest Cake to share.

And all of that wore my little Noah out...

Isak and Kira each wrote 100 things they were thankful for and gave it to their teacher at primary.

We enjoyed our Thanksgiving.  It was just right for us.  We're thankful for all of our many, many blessings.