Last Weekend Before the Holiday Season Begins

For the most part, we had a relatively low-key weekend which is always nice right before the rush of the holiday season begins.  We're hosting my parents for Thanksgiving this year and then already have plans for every weekend until New Year's!

I've been going to System of Strength for a few years now on a semi-regular basis (I try to go at least once/week which is sometimes hard since I pretty much only do early morning workouts & I already teach on Tues/Thurs mornings) and was excited to check out their newly opened studio in Clintonville.  I went on Saturday morning and loved the look of the new studio!  The instructors are all pretty much the same as their Grandview & Dublin locations so I knew I'd be getting a great workout.  They had a good deal on class passes (buy 10, get 5 for free) before the studio opened so while I feel more at "home" at the Dublin studio (because I know more people there), I'll be heading to Clintonville every so often to use my class pass there.

Front doors to the new SOS studio

Front desk

Back wall of the front studio, the apparel is set up in the next room, and that leads into the back studio

Once I was home and showered, we just kinda hung out at home until it was time for our Christmas mini session with Laurel Coffey Photography.  She has a beautiful in-home studio and we took our Christmas card pictures here last year as well.  The rest of the day we again just hung out at home (and got out some "new" toys we had stored away in the basement) until we had a babysitter come over so Todd & I could have a date night.  It was the last of Todd's birthday celebrations and I had planned dinner & drinks at BrewDog followed by more drinks at Loose Rail Brewing in historic Canal Winchester.  The food was surprisingly delicious at BrewDog (since they're known for their beers, we really didn't have high expectations for their food) and the atmosphere at Loose Rail was awesome.  They had a live band playing jazz music and I loved the look of all the exposed brick and wood beams.  The girls did great with the new babysitter and we already have plans to use her again in December and January for our work holiday parties.

Laurel's in-home studio set up for Christmas mini sessions

Todd & the girls watching game day

We keep bringing toys out from the basement that haven't been played with for awhile (with the intention of Cece playing with them) but Lucy ends up having more fun with these "new" toys (notice Cece in the background most likely getting into trouble)

Sisters on the slide

Waiting to be seated at BrewDog

The nice thing was they had a TV in the waiting/bar area so Todd could watch part of the OSU football game

View of the brewery from our table

Obligatory taster flight

Ready to dig in to my BBQ cheeseburger

Outside Loose Rails Brewery (it was raining on Saturday night otherwise it would've been a great nice to sit outside by the fire pits they had)

It's not a very large building but they had an upstairs area too with additional seating & a pool table

More tasters!

And one more selfie

We didn't do anything picture-worthy on Sunday and I think the highlight for Todd was buying a sink at Lowes for the next phase of his basement project which is the bar area/hang out area.  We're going to add a bathroom do there so that's what the sink is for and next up will be purchasing the toilet.