Holiday Fun 2015

The month of November and December are full of lots of holiday fun - many of our activities are family or friend traditions we try to do every year, and others are spur of the moment outings or family activities!  Here are a few of our favorite things we did this holiday season!

I kicked off the holiday season with my moms group - Pre Thanksgiving Feast!  We have been doing this feast for at least 6 years!  We get together a week or so before Thanksgiving to sample out favorite Thanksgiving recipes to share with our friends! Always a fun night we always look forward to!

We had a low key Thanksgiving with Jons family with a nice meal and taking the kids to the movies to see "The Good Dinosaur"

Time to decorate the tree!

Time for Dixie... 

and Herbie to visit... 

Shayla had her holiday party Cotillion so the kids both got dressed up for the evening! They always invite the siblings on to the dance floor too!  

It was a beautiful and fun night for all!

We met up with Brooke and Brayden to help celebrate Braydens birthday at the Four Season holiday adventure!

We got to meet Santa!

Smile Santa!

And do faux ice skating!  It was so hard compared to real ice skating but the kids still enjoyed it!

We decorated Gingerbread houses!  I had put "Decorate Gingerbread houses" in the advent calendar on a Sunday and didn't realize it was there and had not bought a premade kit yet, so guess who made homemade Gingerbread houses from scratch!  It was actually a lot easier than I thought so I think we may have started a new tradition! I always save Halloween candy to decorate with so I had plenty of that laying around!

And we had fun checking out the neighborhood Christmas lights!

We had a fun Girl Scout holiday party and secret Santa exchange!

The kids did a great job at their school holiday performance!

All dressed up for the School performance. 

My holiday cuties!

I went to a holiday part y for one of Jons client - the theme was the Speakeasy so we had fun dressing up a bit!

The did a Magic Mountain date with Amy's family! (Only lost one kid - Mitchell - when after this photo he went behind the Christmas tree while the rest of us went the other direction!) 

We dressed up for our Ward Christmas party "Night in Bethlehem" and it was a beautiful evening! 

Entering Bethlehem and paying our taxes. 

What a wonderful night! 

My bestie Heather had her annual ladies social - this year the theme was Barbies!  

I had fun as workout Barbie!

And Heather was a Ken doll!  It was too fun!

We went to Jon's Christmas work party too! They were celebrating 20 years in business!

It was a great month full of lots of time spent with family and friends!

Yosemite Trip Thanksgiving 2014

Now that the holidays have passed I have a half of a second to catch up on some overdue blogging!  First, Thanksgiving! 

This year for Thanksgiving we went to Yosemite!  Part of our goal to visit one National park a year!  I wanted to get away to somewhere with cooler weather vs the 85 it would be here on Thanksgiving so it would feel a bit more like fall to me!  It is amazing that within a 5 hour drive we can be surrounded by a whole new dimension of God's creation.  If that doesn't inspire GRATITUDE on Thanksgiving, I don;t know what would! 

YOSEMITE OR BUST!

First stop, hitting Bravo Farms on the way in Traver, CA!  This little farm is a  gem and the best place to stop if you are traveling anywhere in the area!  They have the coolest things to look at, chickens to feed, a petting zoo,  fresh cheese you can watch being made, yummy food and a cool atmosphere!

And a cool 7-story tree house you can tour for a quarter! Best quarter I have spent in awhile!

Then off to Yosemite Valley!  As this was a last minute trip, most hotels/cabins were booked and we did not want to camp in the cold time of year as we only have beach weather type camping gear!  But luckily I found an amazing little lodge right outside the park - Yosemite View Lodge - that was $80 a night and had an amazing view and only 10 minutes outside the park and had a kitchen for use and had an indoor swimming pool I knew the kids would love! On the next trip I would also love to stay at Yosemite Bug or even Curry Village!  

We arrive to Yosemite Valley!  Wow!

We bundled up and hit the Valley for a few awesome hikes!  The kids were amazing on this trip really pulling their load and hiking with minimal (of course I would not say none at all!) whining!  We did the Bridaveil Falls hike and the Yosemite Lower Falls hike!  Although the falls were sparse because of the drought in California the past two years, there was still beauty all around! Sentinel Dome (By Curry Village and Cooks Meadow Loop) is the best place for sunsets in the fall we were told but we did not make it there.  

Note to self and hiker families with kids - get the kids a hiking stick and it makes hikes 10x more enjoyable for the kids!

Love this view too! The kids were always fighting who got to walk with daddy and this was the best compromise!

We also found a small trail somewhere by Curry Village (Cooks Meadow Loop I think) and found a few deer grazing.  They would come right up to us and were not very afraid of humans. 

Half Dome in all it's glory!

Walking across the valley to get a better view!

And stopping at Tunnel View is an absolute must for this View of El Capitan and photo op!  We used this photo on our Christmas cards this year!

Then off to Sequoia National Park to Mariposa grove! First stop, the Fallen Monarch!  Amazing! There were some Japanese tourists there who did not believe it was a real tree!                 

We also made it to the Grizzly Giant and the California Tunnel Tree!

 

The next day we headed to Wawona Hotel and Pioneer Village.  There is a lot of neat history there and it was cool to visit the Pioneer Village on Thanksgiving! First we stopped at the beautiful Tenaya Lodge to do some Ice Skating for the kids.  This lodge was awesome and so cush for with kids sledding, horse back riding, etc for the guests.  Would stay there too if budget allowed. 

In a pioneer cabin at Pioneer Village at Wawona. 

We were lucky that they opened the Sugarpine Railroad train for the Thanksgiving weekend as it had already closed for the season, but we got to take a ride afterall! The kids enjoyed the ride on this Steam engine!

Final family photo of our fun trip!  Hope to come back again soon! Next time to visit the oarts of the parks we did not see -  Kings Canyon, Nelder Grove maybe in Mariposa and do some bike riding around Mono Lake or Tuolomme Meadows! 

Snapshots of November 2014

Oops just realized my last post was October snapshots and it is mid-December so time for November snapshots!  We had a lot happening in November - don't we always!?  Here are some random highlights...

Shayla finally lost a front tooth (; 

Best friends night out to see another dear friend perform!  

Magic Mountain with friends! 

Girl Scouts Pet Patch day! Meeting the bunnies!

Crazy hair day and Pomegranate picking! 

4h fieldtrip to the school farm to visit the Thanksgiving turkeys! 

Mitchell's preschool harvest craft day... 

With mom!  So blessed to be able to be home to have the flexibility to enjoy all these special days with my kids! 

Seeing our friend perform in the Nutcracker!

The Nutcracker is an annual mom/daughter tradition for us too!  

Kicking off the holiday season!