Sunday, November 25, 2018 - Celebrating Birthday #17 with my Granddaughters!

Sunday, November 25, 2018 - Celebrating Birthday #17 with our two oldest Granddaughters!

In 2014 I started taking my three granddaughters Haleigh, Dacy & Kamron shopping together.  Our first trip was over spring break.  Here they are posing on March 14, 2014.  Dacy (left) and Haleigh (right) were only 12 years old.  Kamron (center) was only 8.  Today Kamron is 13 and the girls are 17.  WOW....where does the time go?

I'm not sure when or why we switched from Spring Break to Birthday trips, but I've taken all three girls shopping every year since.  The last couple of years I've taken Kamron by herself and continue to take Haleigh and Dacy together.  Kamron's birthday is in August and the other two girls birthday's are October 30 and November 23.  I enjoy spending this special time with them.

Birthday Trip with Kamron, July 2019

I took Kamron shoppping earlier this year before we left on our Northeast trip in August. 

Yesterday Haleigh, Dacy and I spent the day in Joplin.  I picked them up around 9 and we made it to Joplin a little before 10.  

Other than being windy it was a fairly mild day with temperatures in the 40's when we left and it warmed up a little more, before the weather changed around noon.  Our first stop was at Ross, then Target.  By the time we finished there we were getting hungry.  Our plan was to eat around 11 before it started getting busy.  From day one we've always had lunch at "The Olive Garden".  What are the chances of this restaurant being the favorite of all three girls - and Nana loves it too!  We arrived at Olive Garden a few minutes before it opened.  As soon as they unlocked the door, we headed for the entrance.  We were seated immediately and everyone ordered the same thing they have for the past 4 years.  Dacy, chicken alfredo; Haleigh, shrimp alfredo and Nana, pasta fagiolia.  Dacy and I love the salad.  On our first trip I told the girls I'd mix the salad up because you have to really toss it well to get the salad dressing on all of the salad since the dressing is on the bottom of the bowl.  Now it's a tradition for me to mix it - and I admit, I do it well.  😊  I love this salad and the dressing!  Dacy always comments on how well I mix it.  Just a fun little thing that become part of a tradition!   We talked about how many more years we would be able to do this.  The girls are HS Juniors.  I hope they will both remain at least in the immediate area through college but who knows where they will end up once they graduate.  We'll see, but no matter what, I'm going to enjoy each year as much as possible and hope this tradition carries on for many more years.

As usual, our lunch was wonderful.  Dacy saved half of her lunch to take home.  After paying we headed to the truck.  As Dacy opened the truck door, she realized she had left her leftovers on the table, so she ran back in to get it.  Unfortunately, they had already tossed it!  Believe it or not, they made her a whole new container of food - a full order with extra breadsticks!  She was so happy!  

Our last stop for shopping was at Northpark Mall.  When we gout out to head inside, we  immediately noticed the wind had changed and the temperatures had dropped.  We started our shopping spree at TJ Maxx where we all found a number of treasures.  I even found a number of Christmas presents - now I'm almost finished!!!  Haleigh and Dacy also were filling up their carts.  We all purchased so much we had to take everything to the truck before we continued our shopping.  We were shocked when we headed outside - the wind was blasting us directly from the west and it was raining - fortunately, not too hard.  We were on the west side of the mall, so I suggested we move the truck to the east side, where we could also park closer to the door.  That was a good move - it didn't seem near as cold on that side with the building blocking some of the wind.

We visited a number of stores here and had such a good time but Nana sure messed up and failed to get one single picture of these two girls!  How do you do that?  But here are recent pictures of both girls:

Haleigh (October 2018)

Dacy (November 2018)

We had such a fun day and the girls were very happy with their purchases!  

By the time I dropped the girls off at their respective homes, I returned to Bentley and my sweet husband around 4pm.  Fortunately the rain had stopped by the time we headed home but the wind was bone chilling!  Dean had filled our water tank, and picked the water hose up as the temperatures are to dip pretty low tonight.  

Dean and I had a quiet evening in front of the TV watching Hallmark Christmas movies.  My husband is so sweet to tolerate this time of year, knowing how much I love these movies. 

Such a great, fun day!