California "Snow Day"

Yeah, there's no snow in San Diego...but this cool park by Devyn's house had a community "snow day" a couple weeks ago and we figured we better check it out. They brought in a bit of fake snow and made a sledding hill, the kids had a blast. They also had a rock climbing wall-Connor owned. Bouncy houses. Train rides. Horse and carriage rides. And Pony rides. This community day was no joke. It took us 30 minutes to find a parking space. But we all had so much fun just hanging together and watching our kids enjoy themselves. We'll be better prepared for the parking situation next year!

Thanksgiving...McPherson style

It was just us four in sunny California this year. My kids actually have no memory of us not being with other members of the family for Thanksgiving, so it was definetely a different experience. I was a little leary because I love being with ALL of my family for the holiday, but we ended up having a fantastic time. We started our day off with a movie! We went with our great friends, the Olsons, and saw Megamind. It was hilarious, I actually gutt-laughed a number of times. I'm pretty sure the adults thought it was funnier than the kids, but we all really liked it. Then we went home and relaxed and played games for a bit before we got to cooking. Darrin made an absolutely delicious turkey and of course we had potatoes, stuffing, corn, gravy and rolls. The kids wanted to have a "fancy" dinner, which basically just means putting a tablecloth out and drinking out of goblets. We really enjoyed spending the day with just our family and look forward to doing it again in the (hopefully distant) future!

Lessons learned...

Ah, the joys of having a first grader. When it came time for Lily's class to do their Thanksgiving crafts, her teacher didn't have much planned and not a lot of time to plan it. So I graciously offered to put together some crafts for the kids. I proceeded to buy all of the supplies and dyed about a 100 pounds (slight exaggeration) of pasta different colors, spent endless hours cutting turkey feathers and heads out of construction paper, drew some Indian arrowheads...and 4 days and $60 later....voila, craft day! The kids had tons of fun, which made it worth it. Nevertheless, I have two words for you--never. again.

Beautiful Fall Pasta. My house smelled like rubbing alcohol for days. Good times.