Thanksgiving in California

We had a great time visiting Andy's family for Thanksgiving!  Ben needed to work the day before Thanksgiving but the kids were out of school, so I drove all of them by myself, making as many preparations as I could so make the trip as fast as possible.  I'm proud to report and record here for posterity that I made the 9-hour-37-minute trip, driving all but about an hour that Cat drove, in less than 10 hours.  We made three very efficient stops, and trucked along the rest of the time.  We had no bad traffic, and no bad weather, plus lots of food and extra movies in the car.  It worked out great, and we arrived earlier than expected, so there was bonus cousin time on Wednesday!  Ben took a one-way flight to Cali that night, arriving just a few hours after the rest of us.

Most of Nevada is not scenic, so the beautiful views were all the more appreciated.

Thanksgiving was nice and laid-back.  Everyone helped with the cooking, though Amy did the lion's share.  It was a watch the parade and football and hang out and play and snack on a cheese ball while there's cooking going on in the kitchen kind of day.  Andy set up a t-ball set in the back yard, so the kids had fun with that for a while too.  Eliza and Cat set up the dinner table, we enjoyed a delicious dinner, everyone helped with cleanup, then we played some games and let our food settle before we got out the pies.

Eliza had fun getting Sydney dressed up and taking pictures of her.

Then Cat discovered that Sydney will NOT eat a mini marshmallow.

One of Andy's cooking contributions was to get as
many mini marshmallows on the yams as possible,
but Amy had met her threshold.

All I wanted was a happy family picture on Thanksgiving...

On Friday we went to John's Incredible Pizza, which is like a Chuck E. Cheese's on steroids - bigger and nicer and more fun with more and better food.  We arrived just before they opened their doors, and there were very few people there for the whole 4 hours we stayed and ate/played.  We kept our masks on when we weren't eating and sanitized our hands multiple times and felt pretty safe.  The kids had a BLAST playing games and riding a few rides and we pooled the tickets, getting enough for everyone to go home with a couple of prizes.  Once we got back to Andy's house, we walked to a park near their house and had fun on the playground, playing catch, and just enjoying the warmer-than-Utah weather.

The Kung Fu Panda game was very popular

We had fun trying this new game called Lazer Frenzy.

Cat killed it on "Piano Keys" (appropriately),
breaking the record on the game, then breaking her own record.

We had to take a picture as a nod to the last time we went to John's Incredible Pizza
when Andy took Eliza's ice cream.  I think that for a 4-year-old it's one of the worst
things you can do, and it took years for Eliza to not get upset when we talked about it.
Luckily now she can laugh about it.

Saturday morning we went to Folsom Lake and enjoyed being outside in the sunshine some more.  While Andy's burnt ends were burning, the kids played and Amy, Cat, and I did a little Black (Saturday?) shopping at the mall.  Then we all went back to the park for a big game of hide and seek and some frisbee.

Jack had fun pushing Sydney in the stroller.

I wonder if this random rock-thing was placed on the top of the hill as a photo op?

Sydney was excited about the water so her mom and dad took her clothes off
so that they wouldn't get all wet.

Sydney was good about splashing on the shoreline for a few minutes,
then she walked right in, and Amy quickly followed, in her tennis shoes.

We headed home Sunday morning and this time Ben did all the driving.  It was another quick trip and he even tied my driving time record, which I'm only a little bit bitter about.  But I am thankful for a smooth drive home after a fun weekend.