Thanksgiving in Vacaville...The Temple, Prep, Thangiving & Black Friday!

The next morning we went on a tour of the Jelly Belly Factory.  We've been there countless times, but it never gets old. I love the smell of sugar in the air!

That evening we left the kids with Casey & Taylor while Ray & Karen, N8 & I headed to the Sacramento LDS Temple. It was so nice to go with N8 and not have to travel so far. We did take pictures on N8's phone, but his SD card decided to crash after that and we lost the pictures!! For dinner after the temple we went to the Cheesecake Factory and I do have pictures of some cheesecake!

Wednesday was our Turkey day prep! N8, Ray and the kids headed out to a bounce house

 

 

while Karen, Casey and I did some cooking. Casey & I made some rolls:

And Karen & I, in our efforts to fulfill N8's request for something blackberry, made a blackberry cobbler.

Thanksgiving morning was foggy and drizzly, but we were up and ready to cheer on our Turkey Trotters!! N8, Karen, Casey, Taylor and Bridget all ran. N8 ran the 10k and the rest ran a 5k. This is a Thanksgiving tradition that began 4 years ago! They all did awesome.

Thanksgiving dinner was a wonderful feast!!

That afternoon was filled with perusing the ads for the best black Friday deals and talking to family on Skype. Henry loves taking on Skype and wanted to be right in the middle of things.

That night we left the house right about 8:30pm to start our Black Friday shopping. We headed to the Vacaville Outlets first. There we hit: Bath & Body Works, Osh Kosh, Carters, Gymboree, Jelly Belly, Tommy Hilfiger, Gap, Puma, Eddie Bauer & Corelle (I did NOT make purchases at all of the stores!). Then it was off to Target. Wow was that a LONG line. We were there about 20 minutes before opening (11:40pm) and the line was across the front of the building, down the side and around the back alley. After Target it was back to the outlets (they had staggered opening times for the stores) and we went to the Crocs store!! We made it home in one piece, right about 2:30am and got a bit of sleep!!

On Friday morning Karen, Casey and I headed over to JoAnn Fabrics to score some cheap flannel. That was about a 2 1/2 hour stay! Then it was back to Crocs for a switch for a wrong size. We made it home just in time for the crew to leave for the Muppet Movie. Karen & I stayed home with Henry and watch Sister Wives (a very interesting show! I had never seen before!). Then we headed to Kohls and later Walmart & Sams Club. 

What a great time. We always love visiting Karen & Ray and their family. Emma had tears as we drove away and all of the kids wondered when our next visit will be. We are looking forward to seeing them and many more of our family in Arizona after Christmas!

Thanksgiving week in Vacaville...Muir Woods & the Beach

This past week we spent in Vacaville,CA visiting my sister and her family. It was super fun!! We ate great food, we visited fun places and we SHOPPED 'til I almost dropped!!

Our first adventure was to Muir Woods. We had been there once before, but it was Bud was just a baby. It was a cool misty morning. The walk through the woods can be maneuvered through with a stroller which is great!

Ray, Taylor, Mo, Henry & I stopped at the end of the boardwalk pathway and the rest of the group continued on for a 5 mile hike which eventually took them down to Stinson Beach. Since it is not a loop we drove the cars around to the beach to meet up with the hikers.

It turned out to be a gorgeous day at the beach!! Clear sky, no wind and it wasn't too chilly!! I think Henry enjoyed the beach the most out of everyone! He loved splashing in the water and digging in the sand.

 

 

 

 

Friends, Survivor and a few days away...

This past Sunday evening some wonderful friends stopped by and surprised me. They had plotted and schemed with N8 for me to go on a girls trip with them to Utah. N8 and I don't do surprises, so this was a little hard for me to digest. Once it all sank in, I was in!

One of the "main" purposes for the trip was to watch Survivor with Dawn. She is a current cast member, professor at BYU and mother of 6! Megan contacted her via email and made all of the arrangements. Dawn & her friends graciously allowed us to come up and watch with them. It was pretty surreal.

Here was are in the car figuring out exactly where we needed to go:

Before the episode started there was visiting. We watched in the basement of a friends home. They had it all decked out in beachy decor. One of Dawn's friends and neighbors is author Shannon Hale! How awesome is that!! I got brave and asked if I could get a picture with her! Yes I'm a total dork, but I knew my sisters and nieces would think it was totally awesome.

Right before we started watching Dawn gave a little "intro" of sorts.

Throughout the episode it was amazing. Dawn gave little tidbits into what else was happening that we didn't get to see in the episode. One of my burning questions was answered-She took with her and still has the long striped socks! It was quite surreal and just made me more excited for the rest of the season.

This was our view as we left (Oquirrh Mountain Temple) and went to stay at Shar's parents home in West Valley City.

On Thursday morning we headed back down to Utah County and started shopping!! There was a lot of shopping. I now know we NEED a Hobby Lobby somewhere nearby! That store was like the craft part of JoAnn Fabrics on steroids!

For lunch we went to Diego's Taco Shop in Provo. This was a favorite place of my brother's when he was attending BYU. It's moved locations and actually has table and chairs inside, but it's still the same great Mexican food!!

Then it was onto BYU campus. Since it had been so long since Megan and I had been to campus and Shar was a USU grad, we decided to take the campus tour on the golf cart! It was nice not to have to walk the campus and see all of the changes that had been made.

After the tour, we found my nieces and nephews that are currently attending BYU! While brief, it was fun to be able to see them.

We also got some silly pictures with the Indian statue. Megan has some seriously hilarious pictures. Mine is VERY tame!

We also did a little stalking and found Dawn's office on campus!

That night we went to Noodle & Co. for dinner. They had the coolest drink machine ever!!

I like my noodle dish, but I would not recommend the pot stickers!

For dessert we went to this little hole in the wall called Sammy's and got Pie Shakes. I got the Mint Oreo Pic Shake-Yum!!

Friday we went off to the mall and got glitter toes! Mine are the green ones.

Then lunch at Guru's. I got a Cilantro Lime Chicken Quesadilla that was super yummy!

We did more shopping and then headed back to the hotel to get a jump start on packing up all of our shopping items. For dinner we went for Indian food. I am a very tame eater, but enjoyed my "snack plate" of Indian Appitizers:

For dessert we went to a weigh your bowl yogurt shop called Farr's Frozen Yogurt. We really need a place like this here!

It was such an awesome trip full of laughs, tears, and just joking around. I had never done anything like this before and is going to have to do it again!!

A huge thanks to Megan, Shar and Rachel for planning the trip and stealing me away and to N8 for taking care of the kids while I was away!

We have a climber...

Henry has decided he wants to climb. I've never had a climber and I don't know how I feel about this! For now his climbing is fairly limited-mostly to the coffee table.

Today he tried to climb onto the side table and failed. A bonk right between the eyes!

 

Hopefully this doesn't become a regular occurrence!