My favorite radio station resumed their annual winter concert Alice Winterland this time, so I bought tickets for all of us as the boys had never gone to a concert.  We arrived at good time; we were able to walk around the food area and grabbed something to eat before we went to our seats.  The location of our seats to the stage was great, however we were right next to the staircase for the floor seating, thus we had to deal with the constant stream of people.  We hung out for a bit, then the show began.  For this show, the last minutes they added two more singers, thus it was a packed lengthy show.  The performers in order of appearance were Lizzy McAlpine, Matt Nathanson, Kelsey Ballerni, John Mayer and One Republic.  Most performers had 30 minutes, John Mayer had 50 minutes and One Republic had 55 minutes.  I am not familiar with the two new added singers, and the others also sang many songs that I never heard of.  But overall the show was entertaining.  When it was time for John Mayer, he had drawn major attention from the crowd which was fun.  I did wish that he played more of his well known songs. Finally when the last band One Republic came on, the crowd was excited.  Their songs were most familiar to us.  We wished that we had brought ear plugs as the sound was loud especially with the last band.  After a few songs, the volume was so loud and it was already close to 10:30 (3 hours into the show), we decided to head out.  We had fun and it was a good experience for the boys that night.

    The bathroom remodeling was not easy, from planning and shopping, then waiting for their daily plans on the workers’ arrival and the dust everywhere in the house. Other than some delays and no-shows which frustrated us, I imagine the job actually went well as the end product is beautiful.  Today they will come for a little finishing touch, then our bathroom will be done.  We are thrilled.  We now can clean up the whole house and finally finish decorating for Christmas.

Before:

New:

    Our local community resumed the Run Turkey Run this year, but they held it on Saturday after Thanksgiving and called it the “Leftovers”.  We signed up and Lisa/Cole joined us.  The turnout this year was not as good as the usual on Thanksgiving day.  Logan and Connor had made a plan to run with Cole, and the rest of us planned to walk.  Logan did well, finished the 5K in 27 mins with Cole.  Connor was a bit disappointed that he could not keep up with them, but he managed to finish the run on his own in 33 mins which was a lot faster than 3 years ago at the last run.  Stuart, Lisa and I were talking and taking our time, then by 2nd half, we decided to try to make up time.  I managed to finish one minute faster than my last time.  We were all exhausted by the time we walked home after the event.

     Suddenly Connor is showing more interests in baking and cooking.  He wanted to make some gingerbread cookies from scratch.  He found a recipe; we made it twice and he was proud of how they turned out. 

      Then for Thanksgiving, he would like to help out.  He made us a pumpkin pie while I made a chocolate pecan pie.  Then I made the turkey and Connor helped me with all the side dishes.  He set up the table and we had a wonderful meal.  We are thankful for a peaceful and lovely holiday together.

    This year, both boys are done with dressing up or trick n treating.  So they were going to help with passing out candies.  Unfortunately the crew did not start on their work early on Monday and ended up staying behind to finish work before the rough inspection on Tuesday.  Thus their tools were outside our house the whole time while the trick n treaters were coming, but we managed to pass out candies.  Connor was helping with the smoke machine, so our trick n treaters liked our decors.  The evening ended early as it was a Monday.  We still have plenty of candies left for us to consume.

   Our anniversary this year lied on a Saturday; thus it was nice to have a day off altogether.  Connor wanted to make us breakfast, so he made pancakes for us.  Logan reluctantly helped him and made us some bacons too.  With a short notice, we managed to find a tee time at Sunken Garden, a short course that Stuart and I had played in long time ago.  It was nice for the boys to try a different course and it was pretty there.  The unfortunate thing was that we were following two very slow 4-somes; we had much better etiquette than they did, and we ended up waiting a lot at every hole.  Overall, the boys had some great hits and some good putts.  Logan scored better than I for sure.  I always enjoyed being out on the course and had a good time.

    In the evening, we chose our usual local place, and really enjoyed a nice meal and drinks.  This was how we celebrated our 17th anniversary.