Thankful

 The holidays are here and going strong! We had a nice Thanksgiving in Angel's Camp.  We skipped the traditional meal and decided to go to the clubhouse for our family dinner.  It was nice not to have any cooking or dishes to do!  Very relaxing.  In fact, so relaxing that I don't have a picture of the actual day.  Imagine that! I'm not very good at documenting holidays....:)

But we have been doing a thankful list for the month of November.  One thing per day.  (It certainly could be prettier but hey, it still holds our list!)  The kids did awesome and it really helped us remember to recognize our every day blessings.

This year our tree has held on to its leaves far longer than usual.  Typically they start to turn colors and then a huge rainstorm comes and all the leaves get blown away.  This year we were able to enjoy our big birch tree with all the beautiful colors for a long time.  And the maple trees in the neighborhood turned red and kept their leaves for a long time, too.  In fact, it is just now getting bare around here.  And I felt like we got to experience fall! 

Gobble, gobble! Hope you had a Happy Thanksgiving!

Thirty-something

Is anyone else sick of coming to my blog and seeing Tahoe still splashed all over??? No need to fear.  I'm back and catching up. 

First thing's first.  I had a b-day.  Happy birthday to me!  I turned 33.  The end.  Oh wait.  It's not the end.  My husband thought I was 34.  Puh-lease.  Could I look this gooood at 34?  :)

Anyway, I got lots of phone calls from family and lots of facebook wishes.  I made myself a birthday cake, Tres Leches, and it was delicious!  (Don't feel sorry for me because I make my own cake.  I actually prefer it that way.  I'm not a big fan of the store bought cake. Trust me.  It's just easier.)  I refused to make dinner so I took myself and my kids out to Subway.  Ryan missed out.....he had to work late.  Boo!  Overall, being 33 ain't too bad. (Other than a few more wrinkles and few less eyelashes, that is.)

So, what have I been doing with my old self?  I decided to try a new recipe.  It's a caramel and marshmallow delight!  It turned out delicious and I'm thinking of tweaking the caramel recipe to make it a little softer.

 

But then Ryan told me he'd read an article on the internet.  Something about sugar causing wrinkles. Blah, blah, blah.  And then I remembered my new 33 year old wrinkles which were probably there 5 years ago but I'm just now noticing them. (Just play along, please.) And all of a sudden I have to rethink my lifestyle.  (I'm talking about the lifestyle where I like to eat sugar because it's fun. And yummy.) 

 

Sigh.

 

 I take it all back.  Thirty-three isn't the easy street I thought it was.  Thirty-three is full of heartbreak and harsh self-introspection. 

 

Alas.  I will survive.  To make myself feel better, I'll talk about Black Friday.  Which always gives me goose bumps.  I am not a die-hard Black Friday shopper, but I do feel the need to join in.  My friend and I started at 5:30 am and shopped until around 4:00 pm.  The beauty of starting early in the morning is the fact that all those other crazies have dropped dead in their beds by then and I am left with empty stores and great deals.  Still.  Which is exactly what happened.  And I managed to get everything on my list - and then some.  (Don't judge. You have to pick a little something up for yourself.  I like to think of it as me paying myself for my hard work and good taste. ;)  And if we want to really be honest, I gave it all to Ryan to wrap up for me and stick under the tree.  But I may or may not have snuck up to the attic, where Christmas and all it's glory is hiding, to "borrow" a few things. Oops.) 

 

Hope November was as good to as it was to me!

 

 



Tahoe

We spent a week in Tahoe a couple of weeks ago and were lucky enough to see some snow!  We stayed at the Marriott Grand Resort and we certainly had some fun.  Here's the recap....

Snow, shopping, and snowball fights.

We made a snowman......

 

and happened to get on the front page of the newspaper.  Famous!        

 

 

Snowball fight #612 featuring the world's largest snowballs.

 

Shayli watching the rest of the kids soakin' in the jacuzzi.  All I can say about that is, brrr!  Feels nice while you're in the water but is rather torturous getting out.

 

And snowball fight #765.  Notice Lexi just hammered Ryan with a huge snowball....right in the shoulder, neck and face. Ouch.  :)
 

 

 

Shayli liked to keeps tabs on the weather.

And I think it's sufficient to say, we wore 'em out!

Happy Halloween!

We made it through another year of pillage and plunder.  And if you live in my neighborhood, you know what I am talking about.

 

 

Our neighborhood is the go-to neighborhood for trick or treating.  I'm talking all Valley Springs.  The streets look like Disneyland during spring break.  I'm not joking people.  I only wish I'd taken a picture of the chaos.  Next year.  Anyhoo, I only captured a few pictures this year.  The one above I took right before we headed out to trick or treat.  I had just handed out candy to a mob of children and was attempting to keep the rest at bay while a I forged ahead to get a picture.  Just one.  That's all  I wanted.

As you can see, we have a Giants fan (Ryan), a little octupus (Shayli), a vampire (Lexi), a witch (Kendri), and ninja (Kyson).

Kyson was a pirate for two Halloween pictures and decided he'd had enough.  So he put on a ninja costume he already had.  :)

 

 The jack o'lanterns.  Spooky!

And here is the whole family at a friend's Halloween party.  I really wanted to do a deep sea theme.  Lexi and Kendri were supposed to be mermaids.  They rebelled. And FYI, my sign does not just say "booty."  I did not go as a butt.  I went as the treasure chest for the pirates.  You can't really tell from the crummy picture, but I was drenched in all my very expensive jewels. My sign actually says Pirate's Booty. 

We had a house up the street do a haunted house this year.  It was a fundraiser for the boys soccer team.  Our kids begged us to take them.  Even after some of their friends came out and said how scary it was.  I went home with Shayli and Ryan took the rest of the kids to get their Haunted House tickets.  Hahahahaha.  They went through the front door, Lexi and Kyson's eyes went as big as saucers and Kendri started crying.  They turned around and left as the chain saw started up.  Apparently, they thought "scary" meant Harry Potter scary.  Oh well.  Luckily there were no nightmares at our house that night!  They only saw about 5 seconds of it.  I guess it was meant for older children. :)

And just to make husband happy, here's my shout-out to the World Series Champs.  I am not a bandwagon fan.  In fact, I am not a fan.  But in honor of Halloween and the coincidental colors of the Giants, I pulled out my Christmas present from about 3 years ago.  It's seen the light of day only a handful of times.  Generally, at Halloween. :)  Go Giants!