Over the River

And through the woods, To Grandmother's house we go!

When we realized that the kids had the whole week off at Thanksgiving, we thought it would be fun to spend the holiday in Utah with family and friends.

And fun it was! We shopped, saw friends, hung out with all our Utah family, ate great food, and played lots of games.

We were able to squeeze in the Museum of Curiosity at Thanksgiving Point with friends one afternoon. We'd been there once a few years ago and the kids were excited to go back.

It's a fun place, with so much to experience and do. (Hang like a sloth, anyone?)

(I can't believe Bug was able to build this without anyone destroying it. Of course, right when he was about to wreck it while we filmed in slow motion, a kid DID come through and destroy it, but I was surprised that didn't happen every minute or two as he tried to build it.)

Thanksgiving day meant lots of food prep. I had come down with a pretty bad cold on the drive out (it was as if my body knew that I was slowing down and ready for a week of no responsibilities and no stress, so perfect time to be out of commission), so I stayed out of the way and let me kids step in. 

And they did a great job! It was fun watching them work with my mom and brother (and Daddy-o did all the pies, of course).

Peanut even helped with setting the table.

We had a great afternoon with my whole family--they all have Thanksgiving together every year, but I don't think we have been around for it since the year we got engaged.

Codenames is the perfect game for a big group with a big age span.

We had a lot of fun with some of the "connections" people were trying to make.  

This sweet little baby was teething and not having as much fun as most of us, poor thing. But we had a few happy moments playing together.

Friday was our last day and we were able to fit in visits with more friends (some of our favorite neighbors from Charlotte!)

and another round of cousins at their new house. We now have my whole family and two of Daddy-o's siblings who live in Utah.

And then Saturday morning, we woke to this! Not what we were hoping to drive home in. I started having flashbacks to February when the same thing happened as I was trying to leave with the kids and we had a very miserable first part of our trip.

But this time, the roads weren't quite as bad, and Daddy-o did the driving so I didn't have to panic :) 

All in all, it was a great week. I keep saying it, but we are so glad we get to see our families more often--we're pretty lucky with the people we are related to!

Visitng the Gold Rush

I keep scheduling big field trips for right before we have trips planned. This was no exception, and I was debating cancelling, but the kids and I had been looking forward to this one, and because of the fires in northern CA, the air quality in the Bay Area had been terrible so a day in the mountains with clean air sounded really nice.

Friday morning, we drove up to Columbia, CA--an old Gold Rush town in the foothills.

The air issues actually meant school was cancelled so Bean was able to join us instead of having to stay behind to finish her finals. (I had already planned to pull Peanut out to come with us anyway.) We missed Daddy-o, but he was taking care of some necessary business (separate post for that!)

This field trip was through our local homeschool group, so we had lots of friends along.

These wild kids would have fit right in back in the Wild West.

Our tour included a gold rocker pan demonstration,

a visit to the Wells Fargo office,

lots of stories about the people who settled this town,

and a stop at the San Francisco store.

And then, in a very timely activity, the kids got to do a fire bucket brigade race.

I think they learned that moving water was really hard. It's no wonder that all these towns burned down at least once back in their early days. Even now, it's hard to get the fires under control.

I love that we have groups to go on field trips with. And that there are other people willing to organize these sometimes.

We are definitely going to have to come back to explore this area more.

Birthday Boy

Happy, happy birthday to our Bug! Our dino-loving, creative, curious, series-reading, detail-drawing, wild-haired, thoughtful, cuddly 12 year old.

He asked to go to the zoo for his actual birthday, so he and I spent a few hours there, mostly at the new California area. It's a well done exhibit, although nicer for some of the animals than the visitors--I doubt we'll ever see wolves there since they gave them such a huge area to roam.

I love that I've raised a bunch of animal lovers who are happy to watch them for hours.

That night, we did a birthday dinner of gniocchi, presents, and pumpkin pie.

The next day, it was Dino day. 

Bug invited 4 friends over to dig our fossils.

These kits are pretty fun--three real fossils in each one, and it did take some digging and brushing to get to them.

As expected, Bug was the last one working. I think he will make a great paleontologist. He's so patient and meticulous.

As Bug was finishing, Bean pulled out her Halloween facepaint and created wounds for all the dinosaur hunters.

Most of the kids loved it.

They were quite the battle-worn group. They were ready for dinner and the newest Jurassic Park movie.

And then we did cupcakes. I went for something simple, but the kids all loved the fossils. I love it when I can make a dessert that is fun, but doesn't take me all day (especially because Daddy-o and I were gone buying a new van until right as the party was starting, so simplicity was our friend this time.)

A Week in Photos

New dog walking assignment--I get to spend 30 minutes with this beautiful (and very hyper, mostly untrained) pup each day. He's reminding me of how much I miss walking with a dog.

Too much to do meant it was time to employ avoidance tactics--homemade noodles for chicken soup.

"Naked" eggs for science. Who knew that you could remove an egg shell with vinegar?

Planning a walking field trip to the library for the day after Halloween was pure genius on the part of Peanut's teacher. The kids were nice and worn out after the 1.5 miles each way, and considering a couple of them mentioned how much candy they'd eaten for breakfastt, I think staying in the class would have been rough on all of them.

Our van died, which meant we have been car shopping, comparing features and coming up with our must-have list.

Fall colors--who said California doesn't have seasons? It's not quite the same as it was back east, but we do have some beautiful trees, and we get to enjoy them along with 80 degree weather in November.