Thanksgiving Weekend

We hope everyone had a nice Thanksgiving! Where did you go, what did you do?

One of my friends from college, Andria, whom I've kept in touch with through the years was in town with her hubby and kids. They were checking out the Austin area. On Thanksgiving Eve we met them at the Salt Lick for some yummy BBQ. It was great meeting all their kids and we had a nice night.

 The next day they came over for a Thanksgiving meal. The kids warmed up to each other and they had a fun time playing. Madeline is holding their youngest daughter, Averie. Their sons, Tanner & Jason are real close in age to Madeline & James. And their other daughter Laine just cracked us up with her personality and all her talking. We were thankful and glad to spend this time with friends.

On Black Friday we didn't do any shopping. Actually I did hit up the outlets Thanksgiving night from 10-12, crazy I know but I scored some great deals on clothes for the kids. So we slept in on Friday and that afternoon we headed over to Six Flags Fiesta Texas for their opening night of Holiday in the Park! The kids really enjoyed all the Christmas shows. We saw the Looney Tunes Christmas and the Rockville Dicken's Carolers, next time we'll have to see the Majesty of Christmas where they bring to life the story of the Nativity. I'm glad Six Flags is keeping Christ in Christmas with their holiday stuff in the park.

The kids went on a few rides that they never went on during the summer.

They had a gigantic Christmas tree lighting show. We caught the end of it where there was fireworks and snow (bubbles) falling from the sky.

What Child Is This - Six Flags Fiesta Texas Rockville Dicken’s Carolers from Melissa Spence on Vimeo.

The carolers sang some beautiful Christmas songs including these two favorites of mine!

Carol of the Bells - Six Flags Fiesta Texas Rockville Dicken’s Carolers from Melissa Spence on Vimeo.

This summer James was too short to ride the big swings, he must have grown because now he's tall enough and was excited to finally go on 

(that excitement quickly changed to fear once the ride started).

Madeline is a pro on this ride.

So James and I decided we don't like this ride. : / Maybe it just seems faster and scarier at night time but we were happy when it ended.

To end the night we visited Santa in his castle there. James saw a friend from school in line in front of us. A pretty little girl who had eyes for James and said hi to him probably 6 times. James says he chases her at recess. Stephen and I were chuckling about that. When the kids saw Santa James was really studying his face, beard and belly. He wanted to make sure he was the real deal, afterwards he whispered to me "mom I think that was the real Santa!".

More Six Flags

This weekend we headed to Six Flags for some family time.

We convinced the kids to go on the Power Surge. It's one of those boat rides that goes down a steep slope and gives a tidal wave to those spectators watching below on a bridge.

Stephen took a video. Madeline was really scared and said "No, no, no - I think I'm going to pee my pants!". Afterwards though she admitted that she liked the ride. James was brave and said he kept his eyes open the whole way down and at the end you hear him say "that was AWESOME!".

 

It was a fun way to end the weekend. :)

Our Memorial Holiday Weekend

Well we started our 3 day weekend off with a bang...we bought a NEW CAR! We've been researching for months and I had it narrowed down to 2 cars that I really liked. The Chevy Cruze and the Hyundai Elantra. I noticed the Cruze on one of my favorite TV shows, Hawaii 5-0, as they feature all the really cool Chevy cars. Well Kono drives a red Cruze (photo below) on the show, and I just loved the look of the car.

So after checking out some of the amazing car deals in the newspaper for the holiday weekend, Chevy had a sweet deal we just couldn't pass up! So we headed down to the dealership Saturday morning. Our friends/neighbors referred us to an agent there. She was really nice and let me test drive the model they had on sale, but I was a little bummed because they were only offering it in black. My current car of 15 years is black...I wanted another color. So we saw in the paper that another dealership was having the same deal and had other colors to offer. So as we were about to leave their lot, the owner came out and said he couldn't let us leave...that he was willing to discount the other models in other colors to that sale price. I had in mind that I wanted silver or red. Well we got the silver one! We got an extended warranty and window tinting at a great deal too. The photo at the top of the post is the car after the window tinting. It sure does help with the sun and heat! The kids did pretty well at the dealership, played with the owner's daughter in the kid area they had while we did all the paperwork - and they too were excited about getting a new car!

So since the kids behaved pretty well, we took them to Six Flags on Sunday. Hey, gotta get good use of the season passes. This Sunday was much less busier than the previous Saturday. And we got on several rides that we didn't even check out the time before.

It's so nice that this amusement park has a water park within it. Cause after standing in line in 90 degree heat, you need a place to cool off. The kids really love it here. And I think we'll get our moneys worth out of it. They have this ride called, The Gully Washer, it's like a big white water rapids ride that you can go on with 9 people. I took a video while we were on there with my waterproof camera, it's pretty funny...I loved seeing the kids facial reactions. If you watch the video all the way through at the end you go under a waterfall, and the side Stephen and the kids sat on went under the falls. :)

Six Flags

Madeline's best friend from school, Ashleigh, and her family invited her to go to Six Flags with them this weekend. It was Madeline's first time - and she had a BLAST. They went from opening to closing. And Ashleigh's family treated her to a really good time.