**Hello Monday** {12.18.2023}

December 18, 2023 / 8 Comments

Happy Monday!! Can ya’ll believe that Christmas is next Monday!! Unfortunately, our students still have four more school days, and I have 5 more school days. So, we are going to be super busy again this week going right into the Christmas weekend. We are for sure counting down. 

Today, I’m linking up with Holly and Sarah for Hello Monday and sharing a recap of our weekend.

Friday morning, Addison was up and at’ em and super excited about her new Moon nightlight that Elfie brought. 

Most of her team were dressed in their uniforms at school on Friday. Look at these cuties! They are fierce! lol

Friday night, we had a game. They all played so well even having to compete against the refs. They were for sure for the other team. But, we won despite all that. And, Addison played awesome and even scored! 

Saturday morning, Joey was up super early, like 3 and left to head to his 50 mile trail run in Chattanooga. So, that meant I was up super early too. 

Addison was supposed to have an 8:00 game, but the other team forfeited due to not enough players. So, our morning looked a little different than planned. I cleaned, mopped, did laundry, wrapped some presents and finished packing.

I was headed up, to Chattanooga, after Whitley’s basketball game finished. 

And Elfie brought Addison squishes. 

I dropped off Addison at Dad & Moms for the night. 

She was well prepared in lots of Christmas puzzles, coloring, treat making, and so much more! 

I picked up Whitley about 1, and we headed North. On the way, we stopped by the Georgia Winery. They were having their Christmas open house, and it was so much fun! The decorations were great! 

After some testing, we headed on North to Chattanooga. The weather was pretty yucky with some drizzly rain and gloomy. We drove through the downtown area, but there wasn’t a whole lot to do that interested us. So, we decided to eat an early dinner then maybe go look at some Christmas lights. 

We decided to eat near Lookout Mountain. It was right near the incline railway which goes straight up the side of the mountain. 

We ate at 1885, and it was delicious! 

We didn’t really know when the guys would finish. The race started at 7:30 am. It was 50+ miles, but not straight ground. There were parts of it that were so steep, they had to use a rope. Very rocky, very steep grades. So, it was kindof hard to determine how long it would take. However, there were cut off points that they had to make, or they would get disqualified. So, it was intense. 

We kept up with them on the tracking app and thought we might have enough time for lights. However, once we got there. It was sold out for the night. Womp womp. 

So, we decided to head on to try to find the Finish line. We got there around 6:30. We called Colin, and he said he was still about 7 miles away. The wind was really picking up, and it was drizzly and cold. So, we were hoping they would finish soon. 

We sat in the car. We were not getting out in that. 

I didn’t tell Joey we were coming, so once they came across the finish line, he was surprised. 🙂

There were over 100 people who enrolled in the race and only 49 finished. Colin and Joey came in 30 and 32nd. We were so proud of them! And they were hurting for sure! And starving! They finished right before 9 pm. The cutoff was 9:08, so they were super close. 

We headed in pursuit for some food. However, it was getting late, and everything was closing. We finally stopped at Mexican. Whitley and I just ate some chips & salsa, and they devoured everything in sight. 

We made it on to our hotel, the Read House, and it was so beautiful! The Christmas decorations were so pretty! 

We didn’t go to sleep until about 12:30 am, which is so unlike us. Then, Joey was hurting so bad, he didn’t sleep well either, which meant I didn’t sleep well. 🙁 

And, Colin texted Joey saying he was starving about 6. So, not much sleep Saturday night. 

With an early morning, there aren’t people around. I was able to snap lots of pics. So pretty! 

We checked out and headed to get breakfast. We ate at this little place called Aretha Frankenstein’s. I forgot to snap any pictures. It was recommended, and let me re-iterate that it’s small! Thankfully, we got there early enough that we were able to only wait 5 minutes and get seated. The food was good though! 

So, after breakfast, we started heading back south toward home. Whitley said Colin was hungry again. Haha! 

So, we ended up stopping for lunch, on the way home. 

We got home, unpacked, moved the Elf, then took about an hour nap before headed to get Addi. Her & Mom had made lots of treats for me to send people at school. I only got two kind made, and they made me about 2 more, so I had a variety! 

Last night, I made up the treat bags and tried to get ahead for the busy week. This will be my last Hello Monday post for 2023. I can’t believe it! Thank you all!! I have so enjoyed doing this and getting to know some of you through the blog world! I plan to do 2 more posts for the year, one Wednesday, then one Friday! So be sure to come back then! 🙂

xo

Thank you to Amazon and Collective Voice for sponsoring this post! This post contains affiliate links.

8 Comments