Kicking Off the Holidays!

Yesterday, the girls and I started our pre-holiday cleaning....getting ready to decorate for Christmas this week.  I didn't get nearly as much done as I would have liked, but for good reason.  We took a late afternoon break to meet up with our good friends to go to a local Christmas parade/tree lighting.

I know, it seems kind of early for this stuff.....but you know what...I don't care.  I really needed it.  Because right now, the holidays seem to be the one thing that can get me out of this deployment funk that I've been wallowing in since September.

So the girls and I headed out and ran a few errands beforehand and then we met our friend LeAnn and her two boys at a local pizza joint for a pre-festivities pizza dinner.  The pizza place is called Top That Pizza....and it's kind of like Subway, but for pizzas.  Pretty cool concept and the pizza was pretty good too!

Afterwards, we went and staked out our spot for the parade.  We got a pretty good spot....near the end of the parade route, right by the big Christmas tree, and far away enough from the grandstand.  The kids enjoyed the music beforehand, and I took the girls to walk around a bit and take some pictures before the parade started.

 

 

As the parade marched by, I could help but think to myself about the parade scene in the movie "A Christmas Story"....and then laughing to myself because I could so see My Marine laughing along with me......

 

 

 

After we got home, the girls put their pj's on and I made them some hot chocolate with marshmallows and they got to watch an episode of iCarly on Netflix before bed.  I would have put a Christmas show on for them, but I just didn't have the playlist queued up for that yet!

 

Overall, it was a great evening....and I'm so glad that I pushed the "Mopeys" aside to go and join my military family for a fun evening out!