Happy Thanksgiving!

We missed having Bug with us this year, but always love having Thanksgiving at the beach. And we got to talk to Bug, who despite not having any sort of celebration today, is happy and well. As he said, he gets to stuff himself every day for lunch, so it kind of always feels like Thanksgiving in that way, haha. (Apparently Brazilians love to feed the missionaries and want them to take seconds, thirds. . . sometimes even fifths.)

We had an early lunch reservation at the Hunter Steakhouse--11 a.m. is a little early for Thanksgiving dinner, but it was nice to have the rest of the afternoon for the beach and hot tub.

And then a lot of us went to see Wicked 2: For Good at the theater that night. I love that there are so many restaurants and things to do within a mile of the condos so we can walk most everywhere. It was really nice walking home by the beach later that night.

Daddy-o and our kids did a late-night taco run to Tacos El Gordo with a couple other cars of people, but I like sleeping even more than tacos (and that is saying something because those are really good tacos.)

All in all, it was a day to be thankful, for sure. I don't take it for granted that we are able to have this kind of Thanksgiving every other year and have people to do it with. We are so blessed to live in a gorgeous state and be able to travel and enjoy all the variety it includes. We're blessed with good friends, family, and more than we need to take care of ourselves, and also with opportunities to share and help others who aren't so fortunate. And I hope we never forget that.

Start of our Week of Thanks

We really maximized our Thanksgiving travels this year--starting off with a quick overnight stop with friends! They're always so gracious offering us a place to stay as we drive down to San Diego, but it's been a few years since we were able to take them up on the offer.

And staying overnight meant we got to enjoy a slow morning together--with good breakfast, a walk around their neighborhood, and then lots of outdoor play time.

The older boys worked on their golf swings while B gardened and S and I talked on the porch. It was such a fun start to our week. There's just something special about people who have known you since before you were grown up and seen you at some of your worst, but still like you, haha. I'm grateful that I still have a few close friends from middle school and even earlier.

And then, we drove down to San Diego to catch Bean's late afternoon water polo game. Traffic was horrendous (there was an officer involved shooting that had closed the freeway down for hours earlier in the day and it was STILL a mess), so the whole thing took almost as long as the drive the day before from home to north LA. But we eneded up with a few minutes to stop for the sunset on our way down.

It was too pretty to pass up.

And then we got to watch our girlie do her thing.

It's fun that they have a tournament the weekend before Thanksgiving, so the couple of years that we've spent the week in Oceanside, we've been able to come see her play. They didn't win, but it was a good game and it's still just fun to see her in the pool after all these years.

She had two more games the next day so after church in one of the single's congregations that she attends, we went back to the pool. 

They beat UW 17-5 (which she rubbed in Bug's face when she talked to him later) and Bean scored a beautiful corner shot.

We had time to grab lunch and take a walk around UCSD before she had to warm up for game two. 

And then the rest of us went down to La Jolla Shores to catch sunset #2. Colors weren't quite as deep, but it was still so beautiful.

We hung out for awhile,

while Daddy-o got into a deep discussion with an old friend.

And then it was time to go watch one more water polo game where they lost to UCSD in overtime, but played such a good game. After her game, we said goodbye for a couple days. Bean still had classes until Tuesday afternoon, and we were finally ready to meet up with our friends in Oceanside.

Thanksgiving, Charlotte Style

We spent the night parked across from our friends' home in our old neighborhood, which meant when I woke up, I got to go on a memory walk.

I love the paths and creeks in the Charlotte neighborhoods.

It brought back years of running, with friends, and on my own, training for races, or just for fun.

Found some mushrooms, because when am I not finding mushrooms, haha.

It had rained overnight and everything was fresh and drippy.

Gorgeous creek. This wasn't the one I ran along the most, but it was closer to our house than that one.

Fall colors were still going pretty strong.

And I finished with a pass by our old house. It's still weird to me that someone else lives there. They've changed some things, but overall, it still looks like the home we lived in for over 8 years.

Got back to the van and everyone was ready for some breakfast. We didn't want to make things hard on our friends who were prepping Thanksgiving dinner for their family, so we just ate in the van. Had to have some of our apples!

I love that we can make real food and eat pretty similarly to how we do at home.

3 weeks in and we're still doing good in there!

Then, we headed out to visit a few spots that were important to us back in the day. This pool was where Bean and Bug got their swim team start, and where we spent so many hours with our summer friends--the team and their families who we were with for a couple of months every summer.

Then we stopped by Piedmont Progressive Preschool, which will always hold a special place in our hearts. We loved that school, and I feel like it helped me decide to go down the homeschool path which has also led to us being able to take this trip.

And then, we went back to crash the family Thanksgiving of our friends. It was so fun to see their extended family who we'd gotten to know over the years of living there, but most of all just so fun to be with these people again.

We got lucky and got to do two Thanksgivings.

This sweet lady was like a grandmother to our kids when she lived next door. She has since moved 30 minutes north to Davidson, but we had so many years of having Thanksgiving together and were so glad that we got to do it one more time.

Mary sets a fancy table. It was lovely and the food was so good. We got to catch up with her family, too. We missed our other neighbor, Sharon, who isn't doing too well healthwise and wasn't able to make it this year. It's sad that everyone ages.

After such an amazing day, we just had to find a place to park the van for the night and ended up in another Food Lion parking lot. They really are so convenient for those nights when we just need a place for a few hours. And that's all we were looking for because we had more plans with friends the next day.

So Much To Be Thankful For

The sky was showing off on Thursday.

Pretty incredible clouds in the early morning. I went out for a walk and Bug went surfing again. And while I waited for the rest of our place to wake up, I had a nice long talk with my Mom while sitting in paradise. Not a bad start to the day.

And then, after a kind of lazy morning, we went down to San Elijo Lagoon for a little hike.

I read about Annie's Canyon a couple years ago and every time we're down in the area, I keep hoping we can fit it in so I suggested it as an option for this trip.

And we ended up hiking with everyone! There were a lot of people in general, but our group alone consisted of 7 families--about 40 people. The slot canyon was a lot of fun, even if we had to wait a long time to climb up the short ladder at the end.

Love this family of ours. And love when we all get to be together.

Then, it was time to head back to the condo to get cleaned up for Thanksgiving dinner.

Our attempt to take a family picture when we were all in clean clothes. Not sure that it's Christmas card worthy (it would have been nice if we weren't so short on time and could have asked someone to take the picture for us, but we were running late because of the traffic getting back, and had a dinner reservation to get to, so this is what we got.)

Maybe this is the shot.

And no pictures of dinner--but a glimpse of the sunset as we left. We ate at the Encinitas Cafe--only place that would take a reservation for 40 people. We had one room of the cafe to ourselves pretty much the whole time, but were all separated into smaller tables, so it felt a little random. I liked the place we ate together 2 years ago more, although the food was pretty good this year.

These kids trying to act like they had to wait for us for forever. They took the stairs, we took the elevator. 

And Bug is still tired. He didn't sleep much on this trip, but I think all the early surfing was worth it to him. And he didn't want to miss out on any of the evening fun, of course, so sleep was what had to go.

We spent the evening playing games. Bean got totally hooked on poker this week, I almost won the Nertz game, and there were some intense games of Code Names throughout the week. The kids went for a walk downtown and back along the beach one night, and there were lots of trips to the hot tub,

We're lucky to have fun friends to travel with, people who love our kids and family, beautiful places to visit and explore.

 

Turkey Day

It's been a party around here :) We all love having Bean back and these two had a dance party the first morning (and I have no photo evidence because I like sleeping, but Bug and Bean stayed up until 1 or 2 most nights watching movies. Her brothers have missed her!)

Lots of play time with the crutches, and knee scooter and crutch, too. These kids are loving all the extra things I have around right now.

Wednesday night, Daddy-o and Peanut did the baking for the next day--3 pies. We got together with Daddy-o's parents and brother's family. It was actually a small crowd for that side of the family, but still a fun day.

And the pies tasted just as good as they look.

I didn't get many pictures the day off--it's hard when you aren't very mobile and the kids were mostly running around outside or downstairs where I never ventured. But I got my food :)

There's a pretty big age span here, but these kids always have fun together.

The cousin lineup was short this year.

So thankful for family and good food!