Back home & Thanksgiving weekend

Just got back last night from a long trip away from home.

We spent Thanksgiving in Utah and then Jared and I left for a week long cruise.

I have a lot of catching up to do at home and in the blogging world.

I have been deep cleaning my house all morning and checking items off my to do list.

One thing that really stinks when you come back from vacation is there is absolutely no food in the house.

I need to go grocery shopping ASAP.

I am also trying to plan out our December traditions.

Luke is at the prime age to enjoy all that December has to offer.

I have a hundred things swarming around in my head to write about as well, but we will start off with the simple: Thanksgiving weekend.

Wednesday was Luke’s birthday and he woke up to presents and birthday pancakes (with Nutella, his favorite).

I took him out to lunch just the two of us to Red Robin.

He thought he was pretty special when they sang Happy Birthday just to him.

That night we headed to Utah to be there in time for Thanksgiving.

We got word that a lot of my extended family had been passing around the flu bug so to be on the safe side we opted not to attend the traditional Thanksgiving feast with everyone.

I was a little bummed, but I really didn’t want the flu bug just in time for my cruise.

Instead, my immediate family all went to Tucanos for Thanksgiving lunch.

It was delicious of course, but it didn’t really feel like Thanksgiving to me.

Hopefully next year we will be back on track with Thanksgiving traditions.

After lunch we all went to the movies.

We chose Wreck It Ralph because we knew the kids would enjoy.

Luke loves going to the movies, so it was a successful day.

On Friday we took Luke to get pictures with Santa.

Fotofly Photography at Thanksgiving Point did them and they turned out so cute.

Jared dressed up as Santa so that he could make Luke laugh and smile.

We also stopped to visit Santa’s reindeer.

We also made sure Ruby was taken care of for Christmas and got her grave festive.

I found the cutest Santa chime that I picked up for her while in PA.

Late Friday night Jared and I took a red eye to Florida to leave for our cruise to the Caribbean.

It was a long night…

It was a great week of cruising, but one thing was for sure…

I missed Luke like CRAZY.

I have never been away that long and it was rough in that department.

He had the time of his life with Nani and Pappy though.

After talking to me one day on the phone he hung up and told my mom, “That was Kristin.”

He is back to calling me mom thank goodness.

If you read the news this past week and heard about a cruise passenger missing, that was our cruise ship.

It was a pretty eventful week.

More on our cruise soon…