Thanksgiving Thoughts & Our Outdoor Makeover

Happy Tuesday! Just one day of work, guys. One day of work stands between us and the best day of the year. We can do it.

I've been loving every second of this week counting down and looking forward to the holiday weekend. I just love Thanksgiving. It's always been my favorite holiday and always will be. A day just for family, food and celebrating all we have to be thankful for? There's really nothing better.

We're staying in town this year and spending Thanksgiving at Jonathan's parent's house. I'm bringing dessert, obviously. I'm planning on a pumpkin bread and need to decide on one other option. Breakfast in bed on Thanksgiving morning is a given. We're seeing the new Hunger Games movie on Friday and plan on spending Saturday with my parents. I'm planning on squeezing in one or two long bike rides or runs with my man. The weather here has finally cooled down just in time for these few days of complete joy. Gosh, I can't wait. I'll leave work tomorrow afternoon and probably cry happy tears because I look forward to this holiday so much.

I know I'm all over the place, but believe it or not, I came here with a purpose and that is to show off our completed patio and outdoor space. It's safe to say I'm going to be spending as much time out here as possible this holiday weekend.

The farm house table is a dream come true. It's one of those things I'd pin on Pinterest thinking to myself, "maybe someday...." and here it is on our patio in all its glory. Jonathan knows a guy from high school who has started his own business making this kind of stuff. I sent him a few photos of what I liked and told him my main concerns were that the table seat 8 people and for it to be so that there isn't a bad seat at the table. You know how there's always a seat or two that gets stuck with the leg of the table in the way and when you sit there you have to kind of straddle the leg? I wanted to make sure no matter where you sit at this table, it's comfortable. This is why I had to get that last photo of the table legs. It's perfection. I wouldn't change a thing about the way it turned out.

I was a little concerned buying chairs for a table we were having custom-made. I was worried what we chose wouldn't end up matching or would be too tall or too big for the size of the table but I absolutely didn't want to end up with uncomfortable chairs just because they looked good. I love these chairs from Home Depot - they ended up working perfectly with everything.

This patio has been a work in progress for a while. We've tackled it little by little and slowly, we've figured out exactly how we want it. When I'm back here swinging on the hammock, there isn't anything I would change and it feels good to have it finished and to be so incredibly happy with the outcome.

Adult Field Day Recap

I mentioned we hosted the most fun adult field day in honor of my sister's birthday at the end of October and it was every bit as perfect as I envisioned it would be. As the most competitive girl in our family, she loved every second of it and I hope she felt all the love we all have for her as we celebrated all day long.

In my passion for planning any sort of event, I committed to making this day perfect for my sista. We rented out a softball field down the street to make sure we the space we needed for all the activities. I spent the whole week before prepping to make sure every little detail was special. I wanted to have all her favorite foods for the after party at our house which meant homemade snickerdoodle cupcakes and all things potato - her favorite food. Since we wouldn't be at our house for the games and wanting to make sure we still had fun event-themed decor, we made a few signs to hang at the softball field. I even special ordered her a sporty birthday girl shirt to wear. I'm so happy with how this day turned out!

Once the teams were chosen and more important, team names were selected, we kicked off the competition with a good old water balloon toss. Only two of us ended up completely soaked because of this competition (myself included). Of course this set off a bit of a water balloon fight because what else would we have done with all the extra water balloons?

Next up was a fierce game of kickball and I'm happy to say that my team won and I didn't get injured, both of which are worth celebrating!

We ended the competition with the highly-anticipated three-legged race and it was probably my favorite part. None of us could stop laughing during the entire race. It was pure joy for me to see everyone having such a good time.

Thank goodness, the birthday girl's team won the overall competition because she would not have been any fun the rest of the night!

Once the games were over, this fun and hungry crowd headed back to our house for food, fun and more competition in the form of slap cup and flip cup.

What a day. It was nice to switch things up and do something different with such a fun group of people. Seeing my sister so happy and carefree enjoying something so perfectly her made my heart so happy. It's safe to say we'll be planning another field day as soon as possible because this was a perfect day not to mention the fact that I'm sure we all want a rematch.

Life Lately

Well, hello there. I can't seem to slow down and/or remove distractions long enough to get a few simple thoughts written out. Anyway, as usual, life has been full of excitement lately. Here's a little peak into what we've been up to.

The work we've been doing on our yard and back patio is complete and it was so absolutely worth the wait because as I sit out here on this beautiful Saturday morning, there isn't a thing I would change. Well maybe I would have Jonathan out here with me instead of working, but that's a given. I can't get enough of this space. As every weekend approaches, I am already trying to figure out how I can spend as much time as possible out here. More photos of this happy space to come later this week!

---

I just finished my second week of Couch 2 5k. I kinda stopped running a few months into this year and then after breaking my toe in July, it absolutely wasn't going to be an option for a while. While I've stuck with my boot camp routine, I wanted to ease back into running because while I love boot camp, I was sort of missing the additional cardio I used to love. I've never tried using a program like this but it was just what I needed to get back into running at a healthy and safe pace for me. Even though the impatient side of me feels like I should be doing more, It feels good to be following a plan. I'm certainly not the fastest I've ever been, but it feels better than expected to run again. The time outdoors is good for me after being stuck at a desk all day and I'm fairly certain it does wonders for my sanity. On my run last night, I felt an overwhelming amount of gratitude for running at all, no matter how slow. A few months ago I couldn't walk without intense pain because of my injury and knowing it could have been so much worse makes me extra thankful to be running again.

---

We hosted some friends for dinner last weekend and it's worth talking about for a few reasons:

One: Life is chaotic for all of us but when the six of us get together I am so grateful for these friendships. These friends are two of Jonathan's best friends and their significant others. I love that meeting Jonathan brought these great guys into my life but even more so, I am lucky to call their better halves my very good friends. These girls support me, lift me up and give me so many reasons to be thankful for them.

Two: The boys prepped dinner while the girls chatted which is worth celebrating.

Three: I made this picture perfect pumpkin cream cheese bundt cake and in my humble opinion, it tasted just as good as it looks. It's funny because I'd been so focused all day of prepping our dinner menu and getting the house ready for guests, I hadn't even thought to whip up something for dessert. I like to think I've built a reputation at this point when it comes to having homemade goodies ready for all occasions so I tracked down this super easy and delicious recipe at the last minute and I'm sure glad I did. 

---

After church last Sunday, we found ourselves with a whole day ahead of us with no plans. We didn't know what to do with ourselves so we started throwing ideas around since there were a few things we both wanted to do. Jonathan wanted to shop for new sneakers and we had a few other stops we wanted to make and of course, I suggested, "Let's go to Target" to which Jonathan replied, "Why? What do we need there?" I laughed, obviously because you never need a reason for Target. The joy of Target is grabbing a coffee and wandering around a bit. Whether you go there for something (and leave after buying 6 other things and forgetting that one thing you needed) or you wander around for a bit and leave empty-handed, it doesn't matter. It is time perfectly spent either way. He wasn't sold, but into Target we went and it didn't take long for me to see that he was finally getting it.

I probably pushed my luck by making him take a selfie of us on top of this but I had to capture the moment.

---

At the end of October, we hosted the most fun adult field day and after party for my sister's birthday. This super fun day deserves a post of it's own but for now I'll leave you with this:

It's certainly my favorite time of year and we've got some exciting things going on. I can only hope I get a little better at documenting all of it over the next few months!