Thanksgiving at the Leflers

The Leflers invited us to their place for Thanksgiving this year. We made the drive on Wednesday without incident, and the kids needed no prompting to start playing.

Thursday was dedicated to making food, and we had a delicious Thanksgiving dinner mid-afternoon.

I was too full to do anything, but the girls all did their nails together.

We drove back Friday morning and had time to do at least some of our tradition of decorating for Christmas the day after Thanksgiving.

Galleria staycation

A while ago I signed up for the Hyatt rewards program at an event at work, then promptly forgot about it. A couple months ago I got an email that the free rewards points I got for signing up were expiring unless I used them before the end of November. I assumed they would be mostly worthless, but it was enough points for a free night at a hotel, so when I found out I was getting a day off on Friday, I booked us for a staycation in the Galleria Hyatt so the points wouldn't go to waste.

We drove there, and found that the hotel charged for parking, so we took a chance and parked overnight at the mall and walked over instead. After getting settled in, we first walked over to see nearby Williams Tower and Waterwall.

Next we walked towards the mall, but Amber wanted to stop in some of the stores nearby first, where she found this work of art.

We got to the mall, wandered some, and had lunch at a Mediterranean restaurant. We wandered the mall for the rest of the evening and had fun exploring the stores.

We went back to the hotel, then when we finally got hungry again, went out for a late-night hamburger.

The next day, we stopped by the zoo before heading home.

Carmen at Carmen

Friday night was the last of my date nights with kids (see here and here for the others). First, Carmen and I went out to eat at an Indian restaurant close to our house, where we ate on paper plates and were chatted up (too much) by the very friendly owner.

Next we drove downtown to see the opera Carmen.

The performance was very good and we both enjoyed it and being at the fancy theater.

Halloween

A few days before Halloween we found some time to carve pumpkins.

On Halloween night, we had mummy pizzas and brain jello for dinner.

Olivia decided that she was too old for trick-or-treating, but we did have a coffin on our porch (that Amber made for the upcoming murder mystery party) so she stood in it to creep out trick-or-treaters coming to our house before giving them candy. 

Miles wanted to be a green monster, Damon was a pirate, and Carmen was a Redwall mouse.

They had a fun time getting candy, and came back with a successful haul (which they promptly sorted).

Renaissance Festival

I bought Renaissance Festival tickets during the discounted early period, and we watched as our weekends were eaten up by various activities and realized we had to go Halloween weekend if we were going to go at all.

Olivia wore her elf Halloween costume from last year and fit right in.

We had fun doing some of the old standards, like kids jousting, and the fire whip show.

And of course we went to several sessions of our favorite show, the real joust.

Damon even got to participate and help out our knight Sir Thomas.

No trip would be complete without a visit to the gardens and our favorite photo spots.

The kids got a few souvenirs and when everyone had had enough, we headed home.

Houston Symphony

In my next date night with kids, I took Olivia to see the Symphony at Jones Hall.

We had fun wandering the fancy concert hall and trying to find a drink because all the water fountains were shut down due to COVID.

The main selection was Symphonie Fantastique by Berlioz, which we both agreed had some really good movements (and some boring ones).