Thanksgiving

I know, Thanksgiving was several weeks ago. Well, I've been a little busy. Thought I'd better post our wonderful weekend with my sister-in-law and soon to be brother-in-law before Christmas arrives.

We had a wonderfully relaxing Thanksgiving weekend at the Sonoma Coast. Spent some much needed quality time with C's sister and her fiance. The girls love their new uncle. As do we! Check out these images. One guess on what CK asked Santa for Christmas?

 

A beautiful sunset our first night.

Making dinner with Uncle R.

Woke up to this view on Thanksgiving morning.

Hunting for Chanterelles with Aunt D.

 Thanksgiving Sunset

CK wakes me up at about 7:30am and says "Mommy! You have to take a picture of the sunrise!" Good call CK, but my camera was DOWNSTAIRS. I'm so glad I took the time to take this shot.

Breakfast tastes so much better on vacation and with this view. How can you go wrong?

 The day after Thanksgiving was a perfect day for a hike.

Uncle R helped the girls see the seals on the rock through the telescope.

Walking down to the water was quiet the little hike....131 steps, but well worth it!

My nosy girls had to check out what the divers were doing. They loved that telescope. That's a kelp forest the divers are sitting on top of, by the way.

Thank you again, D and R, for a wonderful Thanksgiving!

Pumpkin Pie

My girls are such goof balls. I don't remember them making this video as I was putting my Thanksgiving Pumpkin Pie in the oven. If you need a good laugh, watch it.

My New Favorite Christmas Song

Enjoying the First Snow in Tahoe

We were lucky enough to get away for family time in Tahoe last weekend. We were really lucky to be there for the first snow of the season. It snowed just the day before we arrived.

What a great weekend we had. Just the four of us. We had dinner with friends one night, but the rest of the long weekend was just us. Warm and cozy by the fire. Walking down to The Lake. Taking our first Winter hike. Watching the girls play for hours in the snow at the side yard. Heaven.

 Enjoying hot chocolate and panatone after playing in the snow for a few hours.

 This little guy would have his breakfast every day on the front porch.

 Winter, Summer, Spring or Fall. The Lake is beautiful and peaceful.

 Daddy teaching his girls the proper way to throw a snowball....right at mommy.

 My beloved..........................and.............................my girls.

 Our first Winter hike. Didn't get very far. The trail was hard to see, but we still had a great time.

 "Look! The tea house!"

 

BEFORE

AFTER haircuts from Aunt J on our way home from Tahoe. What big girls!

Halloween Trip Through the Corn Maze

Halloween morning my friend CF and her two boys took us with them for their annual trip to the Swank Farms Corn Maze. What a fun place. The only thing that would have made it better is if CF's husband could have joined us. Such is the life of a rancher. Next time.

I think we are going to be making this a tradition in our family as well.

 

It was a beautiful day.

 The boys went one way while the rest of us went another. The girls loved it when we found the boys.

 Planning

 How great is that?! The girls loved running through the corn maze.

 Checking out the word on the sign post. There are several through out the maze. At the end the words finish the story Swank Farms gives us.

 The 2010 Corn Maze map. There are red dots on the map indicating where the signs are.

 Figuring out which sign posts we missed.

Thank you CF and boys for a wonderful Halloween morning!

Change of Plans

At the end of October we were scheduled to go camping. CK and I with her Girl Scout troop and O with C for a daddy camping weekend. Well, long story short....we got rained out. What to do instead?

We thought it would be fun to go and check out the California Academy of Science and see if D (C's sister) was free for lunch. I grabbed my camera, and an umbrella, and the four of us headed to The City.

We had not been to the California Academy of Science since it had been remodeled. WOW! Beautiful! Many old favorites, but many new ones as well. There is even a "living roof." My favorite was the rain forest. I could have spent all day in there. As a matter of fact C and the girls had to drag me out.

After our great visit at the Academy of Science we had lunch with D and R (her fiance) at the Ferry Building. Seems funny, but I've never been in the Ferry Building. What a fantastic place. I can't wait to go back. So many wonderful shops. All related to food. How fun is that?

What a wonderful rainy day in The City.

 

I didn't take a lot of pictures of the Ferry Building. It was so crowded. Everyone inside because of the rain. We loved this store with all the wonderful mushrooms. These shimeji were our favorite looking.

Celebrating Halloween

I love Halloween!

The fun begins with making costumes for my daughters. The three of us head to the fabric store in early September to choose a pattern (if I need to get one) and fabric (the real fun part).

This year O decided she wanted to be Cinderella "the maid" (before the ball). Great, no pattern for that. CK wanted to be Mulan. Also, no pattern for a Mulan costume and I didn't like the costume the Disney store sells. I told CK to look through the pattern books at the fabric store and look for a pattern that looks like Mulan's dress. As she looked through the book, she found a really cute witch outfit and changed her mind on her costume. In the meantime, I was looking through another book to find a pattern I could use for O's Cinderella before the ball costume. I found the perfect pattern. O wasn't sure because the picture, of course, didn't look like what she imagined. I told her to trust me. She did.


 We picked out fabric perfect for both costumes. I love being able to create costumes the girls have imagined. Especially something like Cinderella before the ball. No specific pattern. Just me, my sewing machine, creativity and imagination.

Yes, it's work. Yes, it's more expensive than going out to buy store bought costumes, but the looks on my daughters faces when they see the finished costume is priceless! That is why I make their costumes year after year.

School Halloween Parade
Another favorite tradition is the school Halloween parade. I understand not all schools do a parade anymore. How sad. One of my favorite memories from elementary school is the Halloween parade. Our school does an old fashioned parade on the field complete with Halloween walking music.

This year the school was celebrating Red Ribbon Week (Say No to Drugs) the same week as Halloween. Each class made a banner to carry in the school Halloween parade. It was a very fun addition to our parade. The classes where very creative incorporating Halloween and our drug free theme. O was excited she was one of the students from her class to carry their banner.

As many of you know I work yard duty a few days a week at the girls school. All of us yard duty dressed as Panther Police. It was very fun. Here is a picture of me and one of my fellow panther officers and friend.








Witches Party
Friday night I went to my sister-in-laws witch party. It was fun to get together with the ladies for a little Halloween fun and even a game of Bunco. I won the "biggest looser" prize. CK and O were a bit confused in the morning when I told them I lost and won a prize. They were sure I really won.

We never made it to the pumpkin patch this year. Tomorrow we plan on going to the corn maze. Hopefully it doesn't rain and spoil our fun. Of course, we have Trick-or-Treating left. Always fun.

We wish everyone a safe and happy Halloween!