Happy 5th Anniversary, Home!

Hey, it's November! Or rather, it's almost December. But, when I last left you, we were at Halloween, so shockingly enough I have some catching up to do. Of course, as soon as Halloween was over, we were on to Christmas. The stores flipped FAST this year. But, I don't mind as much anymore. Do whatever makes you happy. If that's Christmas in October and a trip to Blaze pizza for lunch on a random weekday, have at it. We sure did. 

Hayden, meanwhile, set himself a pretty lofty goal. He wanted to walk 100,000 steps in a week. And by "week", I mean the workweek Hustle, which runs Monday thru Friday.  I thought he'd give up by Tuesday, but he kept on with it. 

His feet certainly paid the price. 

But he did it! 100,000 steps by Friday evening! 

He did have a library event one of those days, so Asa and I took him out to Starkey Ranch for that. He went to TAB (IN PERSON! FOR THE FIRST TIME SINCE MARCH 2020!) and we got take out and wandered the park and community garden. It was lovely. 

On the way home, Hayden collected his free Hot N Ready Pizza he "bought" with all the chips he earned from me for doing things on time, and hitting milestones in November. Fun story: they put all the take out pizzas in a locker, then send you a secret code to unlock your pizza! 

Since November hit, the weather has taken a turn for the worse. It's way cold. Ellie and I don't love it. 

But we also had some real rainy days. I don't do well with those. 

Hayden may have gone to his first TAB meeting since early 2020, but that same week, Peyton took part in his first in-person Gaming Tournament since September 2019. Gamers on the Edge was doing their all-night charity event, that they do every year the weekend the time changes- so it can be "25 hours" instead of 24. Of course, it was cancelled last year thanks to Covid, but this year it was back! So, Peyton went to that (we watched him on Live Stream). 

And since it was in Clearwater, and he needed someone to run him over there, Asa and I decided to make a stop in Safety Harbor to nose around. It was pretty cold, and cloudy out. But, we bundled up and made the best of it. We had lunch at a cute little sandwich shop. 

Asa got some awesome ginger beer soda. 

And our sandwiches were on point. I had a turkey club with bacon jam, and Asa had a cuban. Plus, I got some Italian Wedding Soup to help warm me up! 

Then we walked down and around Main Street and over to the park by the pier. 

Of course, there was some walking on the rocks down by the bay. 

(And look how cute this is- I love Safety Harbor!) 

We walked along the boardwalk by the water for awhile.. 

And then looped back around to go in the shops and stuff along Main Street. 

Before heading home, we decided one last stop was in order for some Pumpkin Cheesecake at one of the Dessert places. 

Such a cute small town! 

On the way home, we stopped by the Post Office. You see, Calib will go to Costco and buy some giant snack in bulk. In this case: fruit snacks. Which, he refuses to share under ANY CIRCUMSTANCE. This annoyed everyone else when we were driving to Top Golf and he brought like four packages he wouldn't share. So, when we went to see Hamilton, Asa took a package, and took pictures of the fruit snacks all around Jacksonville to screw with Calib. They were returned safe and sound. 

But, then Calib did something else to annoy me (who knows what, it's not important), so I told Asa we should mail a package of fruit snacks to Jake and have him send Calib a picture of the fruit snacks in Columbus. So, here we are, secretly mailing the snacks to Jake. 

For the next week, I kept telling Calib I was getting him back. And it was so good. And he was like 'ok, sure." But, when he finally got a video from Jake of Jake eating the fruit snacks, the pay off was well worth it, as was the $1.58 we paid to send them. 

In other news, November 7th marked FIVE years since we bought our house! 

I present to you the picture I took that day on the front porch before the boys even came inside... 

And the picture I take every year on the same day of all four of them on the porch. They've gotten taller. Peyton's hairs gotten longer. The house, however, has treated us well. (I love my house!) 

Normally we celebrate with some special meal, but Peyton had been gone all night at his gaming tournament, and it was a Football Sunday. We decided to postpone the special meal, and have breakfast tacos with the taco bar- since we had to go get Peyton so early anyway. That means eggs and potatoes.. 

And italian sausage.. 

Plus all the toppings! 

Though, we did have donuts to celebrate the special occasion. 

Monday morning, I bravely decided to go back to walking more than one dog at a time. Ellie and Phenom, I've found, are the easiest combination, except when Ellie is still sniffing and Phenom runs ahead as far as his extendable leash will go. 

Ellie might be looking a little grey in the face, but she still has some pep in her step. 

Asa took a couple days off (he was nearly in a use it or lose it scenerio yet again), so Monday we got to take a picnic bike ride. I've really leveled up my bike ride picnics from uncrustables, a juice box, and a bag of chips. 

Hayden meanwhile was taking the first half of his driving test. Trust me, two computers were neccessary. 

But hey, at least the weather is nice enough to do his reading in the hammock. 

While we're outside, lets do a garden check. We've got lots of lemons about to turn, a couple of cucumbers, lots of greens, and a few beans and cherry tomatoes going right now. 

The first two lemons came off the tree-- but as you can see, there are a lot more where that came from. 

Monday night Calib swung by Cheddars on his way home from work to pick up dinner for us, so we could finally have our House Anniversary Celebration dinner. It's really kind of nice he works up that way, you can make him run so many errands on his way home! 

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And, that's it for my first November blog. On to the next!