Weekend Recap

Hello Everyone! I trust you had wonderful weekend! Ours was filled with all kinds of fun things and I'd like to share those with you today!

Friday:

I was inspired by one of my fellow bloggers to sign up for volunteer work in my local area and Friday night was my first opportunity to help serve my community.  For the past 20 years the City of Auburn Hills has hosted a fun tree lighting ceremony in the Downtown Area and they needed volunteers to help run the program.

During the ceremony, they had all kinds of fun events! They had a free "sleigh" ride for anyone willing to stand in line, s'mores around a fire, Santa Clause and Mrs. Clause, cookies and hot cocoa with live music and face painting for the children.  During my time serving I helped to pass out cookies and hot cocoa and helped to direct the people waiting in line for the sleigh ride.  Michigan has been seeing some chilly weather the last week, so I was actually surprised at how many people stood out in the cold to wait to see the horses, but I'm glad they did.

I love seeing the joy that children have when they see things like Christmas lights, Santa Clause and horses. It reminded  me that I need to always see the joy in the small things.

Saturday:

Saturday my girlfriends and I made our way out to see a production of The Nutcracker.  We had originally planned to go see a professional version of the ballet, but Sarah found out about local company putting it on and it was a better price and better time than we originally planned.

 Overall, the ballet was wonderful.  There were dancers of all ages and it was fun to see how much talent some of those little ones have.  I honestly think that one of them was only four years old! He was my absolute favorite because he was so tiny and just so adorable.

After the ballet, we took a few moments to grab pictures of us holding ballet poses (can you tell who was a ballerina before?) before we made our way to Bar Louie for dinner.  Of course the Michigan State v. Ohio State game was one at Bar Louie so I watched a few moments of the game! I'm not a huge football person, but anytime MSU plays and I can watch, I always watch as much as I can.  

Such a fun night out with my girls! I'm hoping we can make it a tradition for years to come!

Sunday:

We spent Sunday afternoon with Justin's family checking out The Dickens Festival in Downtown Holly.  If you live anywhere in the Holly area, I would take a few hours to check out the Dickens Festival.  They basically turn Downtown Holly into The Christmas Carol with carolers in full costume and all kinds of fun events and games for children.

After visiting the Dickens Festival, we made our way out to go cut down our Christmas Tree! This is seriously one of my most favorite traditions that Justin and I have because I have never really had real trees growing up.  Traditionally we go to a family friend's tree farm, but he did not open it up this year due to his wife being ill {if you are religious could you please say a prayer for her? She really needs them}.  We decided to try a tree farm in the Holly Area, but when we got there, the pickings were very slim and they were very expensive.

We ended up going to Candy Cane Tree Farm to see if we could find any better trees and they had such a great selection of trees!

After looking at what felt like 300 trees, we finally decided on a tree.  Because we go with Justin's family, we always get three trees: one for us, one for his parents and one for his sisters family.  It is always so fun to see how different trees are that we each get.  His parents got a shorter more round tree, his sister and their family got a tall and skinny tree and Justin and I ended up with a huge tree.  I swear it did not look that big before we cut it down, but I love it.  It's a bit crooked but it added just enough character to make the tree fun.

 The night ended with us heading to his parents house for pizza and to warm up since it was so cold outside yesterday! Such a fun weekend!

Tell me about your weekend! Anything fun or exciting happen?