Thanksgiving

White/wheat bread I made for Ryan's stuffing. 

Declan's fried turkey.  (It was delicious!)

The food.

And the table.  Lorie does a fantastic job decorating!

Disneyland

Since both Ryan and Rachael had the whole week off for Thanksgiving, we drove to Disneyland! It's only about a six hour drive from here.

We went to Huntington Beach when we got to Anaheim and ate at Ruby's on the Pier.  It was fun!

Only one day - we spent it all at the Magic Kingdom.

 Our first roller coaster of the day: Big Thunder Mountain.  Ryan looks excited.  Rachael looks nervous. She did pretty well; we also did the Toontown coaster, Splash Mountain, and of course the Matterhorn.

 We accidentally came across It's A Small World.  Rachael was enchanted.  Ryan must really like her because he even went with us. 

The "dancing teacups!" Her favorite from Walt Disney World.  Still fun.
(We noticed the one in Florida is covered but the one in California is in the open air.)

The carousel! I have a picture almost like this from Walt Disney World.

 Star Tours! Our favorite as a family.

All decorated for Christmas.  It was beautiful.

Driving home through Los Angeles.

We had so much fun - we may make it an annual tradition!

A (rental) house!

It's official! We have a rental house.  We put offers on two other houses, a nice house in Livermore and a townhouse in Dublin, but the real estate market is just crazy right here right now so instead I found this rental house and we get the keys on December 1.  Our furniture arrives on December 5 and we will officially be moved to California! Next up: car registrations, drivers licenses, changing elementary schools again...

Oakland Zoo

The kids had the day off of school in honor of Veteren's Day (on Nov 12, but weirdly enough not Election Day.  In Kentucky we would have had school Monday but the day off for Election Day.) Since Lorie's boys had the day off too we all went to the zoo together.  It was a lot of fun. 

Rachael's favorite - the giraffes 

Cute kids at the zoo

Postscript: a few days later I was looking at these pictures on my computer and asking Zach, my 2 year old nephew, who the people in the pictures were.  He knows Mom, Bubba (Braden), Shy-Shy (for RyRy, my nephew Ryan), and when we asked about Rachael he called her "Sissa." So cute!

Monterey Bay

We are trying to squeeze in as many trips to the beach as we can before the weather gets too cool to want to play at the beach.  Even though it doesn't snow where we live now, it does cool off enough that you don't want to be in the ocean.

Rachael at Monterey Bay

Jellyfish we could see from the pier 

Sand crabs Rachael found on the beach

We didn't spend much time in the water but the weather was nice and the beach is beautiful.  We can't wait to come back and see the Monterey Bay Aquarium sometime soon!

Jelly Beans and another tooth

Rachael had the day off school so we decided to get ot and do something fun - we drove to Fairfield, CA and went to the Jelly Belly Factory.

I didn't take very many pictures because no pictures are allowed on the tour, but we thought it was interesting.  I loved seeing all the thousands of jelly beans! Rachael's favorite part was playing some of the token games by the cafe.  (You know, put a quarter in and push the button...) Since the factory tour is free we bought some jelly beans at the company store.

To cap off an exciting week, Rachael pulled out a loose tooth. First tooth lost in California! Now she is missing both teeth on either side of her two front teeth.

Halloween Fun

I really need to update this blog from the past couple of months, but I don't want the next few to get away from me, so I'll have to go back and add that when I get time.

We had a pretty good set of Halloween activities this year, even though most of our Halloween stuff is packed in a box somewhere.

Saturday we started with the Stake Trunk or Treat activity.  They had carnival games set up and a pie eating contest and lots of fun.  When the trunk or treat part started they ran out of candy in 30 minutes because there were so many kids!

Rachael playing a carnival game

On Sunday we made caramel apples with the cousins. Yum!

We carved our pumpkins for family night.  Since Ryan gets home from work later now, Rachael and I cut them open and scraped them out before he got home.  She had so much fun cleaning them out - she said it was her favorite part.

Cleaning out pumpkins

Our pumpkins this year: Kristin, Rachael and Ryan

On Halloween day at school the kids get to wear their costumes and have a parade. Rachael's bright pink costume really stood out.

Rachael in the costume parade

Waiting with kids in her class

For Halloween we went back up to the Maddens house.  We had a yummy chili dinner with them and then the kids went trick or treating together.

Pinkalicious!

Ready to go! Rachael as Pinkalicious, Ryan as a stealth ninja, Zach as Max from Where the Wild Things Are, and Braden as Captain Rex from Star Wars the Clone Wars.

Ryan and Rachael's candy haul!