Our Thanksgiving trip

A few weeks before Thanksgiving I got a text from my sister Jolene (who lives in CA) asking if we were coming home to visit for Thanksgiving. I told her no immediately, because well, we’re broke. She responded that I could at least talk to Waldo about it before I shoot the idea down and that it would be really cool if I came because Jody (our other sister and Jolene’s twin, who lives in OK) and her kids were going to be there too.

So Waldo and I talked about it and after he said no (because we think very much alike), we started looking at how much it would really cost. After all of the figuring we realized it wouldn’t be THAT much money since we could stay at my Dad’s house and most of our food would be taken care of because of the holiday. So I texted Jolene and told her that as long as there were no major blizzards on the mountain passes we had to cross, we’d be there.

A week or so later we found out that Jody bailed on us, something about needing to work. We forgave her, but it would have been so much more fun if she’d have been there.  Jolene figured that since Jody decided to stay home we wouldn’t take the trip either, but Lily was so fricking excited that we couldn’t change our mind even if we had wanted too.

We, or I should say Waldo and his Dad, kept a close eye on the weather reports for the week leading up to our leaving. Everything looked good so we headed out Wednesday morning. The drive went great surprisingly well.  We got rained on a tiny bit, but the only snow we saw was way off in the mountains no where near us. Then we got to Donner Pass and hit some rain and a lot of fog.

California Thanksgiving trip 2012

You should be able to see a whole lot further then you can here.

California Thanksgiving trip 2012

We got out of the fog fairly quickly and then it looked like smooth sailing. Boy were we silly to think that driving to California the day before Thanksgiving would be a good idea. Right outside of Sacramento we hit the bumper to bumper holiday traffic. It sucked! It was also the point where I took over driving, Waldo finally wanted a break. He says it was a coincidence, but I’m still not sure.

California Thanksgiving trip 2012

We finally got out of the crazy traffic about an hour or so outside of my Dad’s house. Thank goodness we finally got to my Dad’s and out of the car. We took Lily in the house and sat her down and told her to tell my Dad about her trip and we went out to the car to get our stuff. I know this doesn’t sound like anything worth mentioning, but for Lily this is a first and is totally amazing. We felt this was a good sign as to what was to come on our trip. I’m going to spare you the suspense and tell you that Lily got totally overwhelmed by half way through Thanksgiving day and went back to her standard shy self. But she still had a great time.

We went to my Aunt KK’s house for Thanksgiving dinner.

California Thanksgiving trip 2012

California Thanksgiving trip 2012

My Memaw and Pop were already there when we arrived, along with Kk and her husband Dixon. My sister Jolene and Olivia were suppose to be meeting us there, her son Max was already there too.

California Thanksgiving trip 2012

KK and Pop

California Thanksgiving trip 2012

Me and Uncle Dixon

California Thanksgiving trip 2012

Me and KK

California Thanksgiving trip 2012

Memaw and Pop at Thanksgiving dinner

Olivia was the only one that Lily cared about seeing so the fact that Jolene was taking her time was killing her. Finally we got ahold of Jolene and I told her I was coming to get Olivia and then she could take her time. Max went with me and it was very nice to get some alone time with him. I can’t believe he’s 16. It’s true what they say, kids grow up way too fast.

California Thanksgiving trip 2012

Olivia

California Thanksgiving trip 2012

Pop, Olivia and Lily

Very quickly Lily and Olivia were off to play in the playroom. It was so cute, seeing them together again.

California Thanksgiving trip 2012

Lily and Olivia

Olivia spent the night with us at my Dad’s, in fact she stayed with us almost the whole time we were there. The girls loved it.

California Thanksgiving trip 2012

Lily and Olivia accidentally sort of matchy matchy

California Thanksgiving trip 2012

Sleeping princesses

It works out great that Lily’s carseat is still backwards because it made it easy for them to talk and share tablets. This was how they spent all of their time in the car.

California Thanksgiving trip 2012

Happy travelers

Friday morning we went to Memaw and Pop’s for chocolate gravy (a huge tradition for our family). My Mom met us there.

California Thanksgiving trip 2012

Olivia and GG (my Mom)

California Thanksgiving trip 2012

Olivia

California Thanksgiving trip 2012

My Mom, KK and Memaw

Jolene did some Black Friday shopping so when she got to Memaw’s she tried to get some shut eye. HAHA, silly girl.

California Thanksgiving trip 2012

Sleepy Jolene

Lily got super overwhelmed during breakfast because of all the noise so Waldo had to take her outside for a little while to relax. The family on my Mom’s side is very loud when we get together, well some of them are anyway.   After breakfast we took a bunch of pictures.

California Thanksgiving trip 2012

Me

California Thanksgiving trip 2012

Me, our Mom and Jolene

California Thanksgiving trip 2012

Me, Memaw, Mom and Jolene

California Thanksgiving trip 2012

Me, Memaw, Mom, Pop and Jolene

California Thanksgiving trip 2012

Me, Lily, Memaw, Max, Olivia, Mom, Pop and Jolene

Olivia stayed with us the rest of the day and the girls couldn’t have been happier. After we left my Grandparents we went to visit my cousin Melissa and her family for a few hours. I realized when we got home that I didn’t take a single picture of Melissa and her family and I was so mad at myself I could have spit.

Saturday we decided to take Lily and Olivia to the zoo. Jolene, Max and KK met us there and we had a blast. The weather was perfect, the zoo wasn’t that busy and we had good company. What more could we have asked for?

California Thanksgiving trip 2012

Lily and Olivia

California Thanksgiving trip 2012

Waldo and Lily

California Thanksgiving trip 2012

Lily, Waldo and Olivia

California Thanksgiving trip 2012

Olivia, Jolene, Max and Me

California Thanksgiving trip 2012

Lily feeding her old friend

California Thanksgiving trip 2012

Lil

California Thanksgiving trip 2012

Olivia and Lil

California Thanksgiving trip 2012

Max and Olivia, such sweetness

California Thanksgiving trip 2012

Max and Olivia

California Thanksgiving trip 2012

Lily and Nosey

California Thanksgiving trip 2012

Max

California Thanksgiving trip 2012

Lily and Olivia

California Thanksgiving trip 2012

Waldo and Lily

California Thanksgiving trip 2012

Jolene and Me

California Thanksgiving trip 2012

Lily and Olivia

Right before we moved to Idaho the Zoo had just started working on a new Sea Lion enclosure. We finally got to see it all finished and I have to say that it was awesome. You could see the tank from above, level with it and below the water line. We got there right at feeding time and we probably could have spent a lot more time than we did, but Lily had to potty and we all wanted lunch.

Fresno Zoo 11-24-12

Fresno Zoo 11-24-12

Fresno Zoo 11-24-12

Fresno Zoo 11-24-12

After the zoo we went to lunch and then to my Grandparents to tell them goodbye. It’s so hard to say bye to everyone and especially them.

California Thanksgiving trip 2012

Pop, Me and Memaw photo-bombing us.

California Thanksgiving trip 2012

Memaw and Me

Back at my Dad’s Lily and Olivia helped get the Christmas tree decorating started.

California Thanksgiving trip 2012

Lily, Olivia and my Dad

California Thanksgiving trip 2012

Oh pretty

California Thanksgiving trip 2012

Little Christmas Elfs

I loved how much fun the girls had together, and we hated saying goodbye to Olivia. I’m so glad my sister was ok with giving her to us for a few days. I hated saying goodbye to the rest of my family too, but Olivia was the hardest.

California Thanksgiving trip 2012

My Dad and Me

We did finally say goodbye and headed out for home. The drive home was a lot better than the drive in. There was some fog in central California which didn’t surprise us at all. We did have to make a stop at a Target in a small town an hour or two from my Dad’s house. We left Lily’s Hello Kitty cup at my Dad’s and so we had to get her a new one. Otherwise it was smooth sailing all the way home.

I can’t wait to see my family again, but for now I’m so glad that we are home.

It’s a busy time of year

I don’t like letting my little piece of the innerwebs sit idle too long so I thought I should come and just say what a crazy time of year it is right now. I’m sure it’s the same for just about everyone. Between Lily’s birthday and Christmas I am drowning. I’ll come up for air soon and finish the Thanksgiving post I have in the works and then start back up with some kind of regular posting.

I hope that everyone has a wonderful holiday season.

I’ll leave this post with a few pictures that Waldo and I have taken recently. It snowed here and Lily loved it.

Playing in the snow

Playing in the snow

Playing in the snow

Playing in the snow

Halloween 2012

For months well since last Halloween really Lily kept telling us she wanted to be a cat for this Halloween. This wasn’t surprising since she’s a cat most of the time and then a few months ago she changed her mind and all of the sudden she wanted to be a piggie. I asked her if she was sure and she swore she was. I came up with a plan for this piggie costume. I would buy her some pink and white striped leggings or tights and a pink shirt. I would make her a pink tutu and a set of piggie ears and tail. I found tutorials on Pinterest for the tutu. I bought 4 spools of pink and silver tulle and started making the tutu. It was adorable. Then Lily started telling me she wanted to be a lamb, I said fine, but it has to be a lamb with a pink tutu. Then she wanted to be a frog, fine as long as it’s a frog with a pink tutu. This went on for a few weeks. She came up with different animals and I said fine as long as you wear the tutu, over and over again. Then she settled on a witch and she was very serious about being a witch. I said fine as long as you wear the dang tutu. She was fine with it so we went on with our planning.

Waldo and I decided to decorate the front porch for the first time ever. Once this was decided I went crazy with planning. We picked up a few things here and there. I ended up buying a large number of pumpkins and glitter. I hadn’t planned on using them together but it worked out that way and it started a pattern. This year ended up being the year of glitter. I also found a wreath tutorial on Pinterest that I was really excited about and all in all I am so happy with how everything turned out.

Lily and I went to Hobby Lobby to get the green tulle and while we were there I noticed pink tulle right next to the green so I asked Lily her opinion and not surprising she choose the pink. Once she decided pink I went all out girly with it. I added eye shadow and glittered eye lashes. Instead of a bowtie I went with a flowery thing. And I glittered the heck out of her teeth. I loved her.

Halloween 2012

I found this little wooden halloween sign at Michael’s and tried to get Lily to paint/color it and she had no interest so one night on a whim I glittered it.

Halloween 2012

Lily and I painted/glitter glued/glittered all of our pumpkins and gourdes except the three that we planned to carve.

Halloween 2012

Halloween 2012

Halloween 2012

I made 4 little ghosts and hung them outside. And the next day it rained like I’ve never seen it rain here before (probably I don’t pay a lot of attention unless we are going out) and I was shocked that only one ghost came off. What I was super unhappy about was all of the glitter that came off of the halloween sign and pumpkins. I guess using watered down school glue wasn’t the best idea for outdoor decorations. Luckily my spider pumpkin wasn’t outside yet, I would have screamed, I worked hard on that baby.

After the rain stopped Lily and I decorated a bunch of craft foam bats and I strung them on the porch. Then the wind picked up and I spent the rest of the week until Halloween trying to untangle them. I really liked the outcome, but it totally was a lesson learned. I have different plans for Christmas decorating. Oh and Waldo and I strung some Halloween lights on the porch too.

Halloween 2012

The weekend before Halloween we rolled up our sleeved and dug out some pumpkin guts. Lily hated that part. She stuck her hand in the first one and that was that, she wouldn’t put her hand inside a pumpkin again. I guess I didn’t upload any of the carving pictures. I carved Cookie Monster and Ernie, Waldo carved a bat and was planning on putting Bert on the Ernie pumpkin, but he’s been working lots of OT and ran out of time. After we were done carving I was admiring my Cookie Monster and decided that he needed a little something extra. So I glittered it and Waldo’s bat. Ernie was spared.

Halloween 2012

On Halloween day Waldo and I realized that Lily could carve a pumpkin with the little special knives so Lil and I sat down to get to work. She mostly designed it and we shared cutting duties.

Halloween 2012

Halloween 2012

Lil decided that he needed to be wearing glasses so the line between the eyes is for his glasses.

Halloween 2012

On Halloween day I like to take an obnoxious amount of pictures with Lily and our pumpkins. I did it last year and we love seeing the pictures come up on my rotating desktop.

Halloween 2012

Halloween 2012

Halloween 2012

Halloween 2012

Halloween 2012

Halloween 2012

When I was planning Lil’s witch costume I had planned on buying a black shirt and putting silver sparkles on it. I was also going to spark up the black hat and broom. When I told Lily about this she put her foot down. She didn’t want to be a ‘fancy witch, she wants to be a mean witch’. I was so bummed and kept asking and she always answered the same way. In fact a few weeks before Halloween she started to refuse the tutu.

When I went crying to Waldo about this he said that he would prefer if the tutu was more halloween or witch colored, but I didn’t want to spend the money to make another tutu that she might not wear so I just kept hoping to wear her down. I didn’t go well.

When we went upstairs to get dressed to trick or treat I grabbed the tutu and she refused to put it on. I begged her to just put it on so I take some pictures and tried to explain that if she didn’t wear it she would just look like a kid wearing a black shirt and stripped tights. She agreed for pictures, but wasn’t happy about it.

Halloween 2012

Halloween 2012

I love this next picture.

Halloween 2012

Halloween 2012

Halloween 2012

Halloween 2012

When the first trick or treater came around the corner Lily had a melt down over the tutu.

Halloween 2012

While I was in the house helping her to remove the offending garment Waldo was talking to the Mom of the treater and found out that she was a black cat and was suppose to be wearing a pink feather boa but had the same meltdown about it. I felt a little better after that.

This is how Lil ended up treating.

Halloween 2012

Oh, oh, oh, I almost forgot. I made the bag she’s holding. I’m so proud of myself.

With this new chattiness Lily has decided is a good thing for her, she had a lot more fun going door to door this year. She said trick or treat to every person and was very excited about her candy haul.

Halloween 2012

I was really happy with how our porch looked all at night and with how everything went over all.

Halloween 2012

Halloween 2012

Halloween 2012

I’d say this was a very successful Halloween and Lil is already telling me what she wants to be for next year.