Three Days after Thanksgiving: Connor’s Blessing

On Saturday, Two days after Thanksgiving, Mom went to Indiana to participate in Connor’s blessing and of course, visit with Sheri and Mckay and play with Dallin.

On Sunday afternoon, after the blessing, I took photos of the Easton family.  I gave Sheri copies of all of the 72 photos I took.  Sheri used five of them on her blog post a month ago.  I narrowed it down to my favorite 15 photos. I’ll start with the cute family.

 Mckay is helping the two boys to carefully show affection.

 Speaking of affection………

 Dallin and I were making faces at each other.  I captured some of his faces.

 Connor was less animated in his faces but still quite angelic.

 This photo needs no explanation.

 Dallin helped Mckay put lights on the Christmas tree.

 Sheri went to bed and Grandma had a turn snuggling the little cutie.

Over the several days of the Thanksgiving weekend, I got to play with all six of my grandchildren.  It does not get much better than that.

The Day after Thanksgiving: Big basin

The Day after Thanksgiving was the day before Neil and Ashley drove back to Arizona.  We went to Big Basin and walked through the redwood forest.  The group consisted of John, Neil, Ashley, Sadie, Madoc, Charlotte and me.  In walking from where we parked, we passed by the big tree stump.  The climbers could not pass up obvious invitation to stand on top for a photo.

 The road also passes what I like to call a goblin tree.  John was feeding kids to the tree.  The tree spit them back out.

 The sun light through the trees was particularly pretty that day.

 Ashley, Sadie and Madoc are in front of the tree that is burned out in the center.  Even though you can see out the top of this hollow tree, it is still very much alive

 Of course, there were logs to climb and walk on.

 John led the way.

 No trip to Big Basin is complete unless some banana slugs are found.  Madoc was happy to show off this banana slug… without actually touching, it of course.

Another fun day with grandchildren.

The Day before Thanksgiving: Monterey Bay Aquarium

The day after the beach, Katie, Ryan and Lucas joined us to go to the Monterey Bay Aquarium.  We started out with our traditional visit to the Fish Hopper for lunch.  As usual, it was very good.  I did not take any photos this time.  We then went to the Monterey Bay Aquarium.

One of our first stops was to see the large octopus.  It was out and very visible.

 We went to the part of the aquarium where the kids could go in a cave where it looked like they were in an aquarium.  Here are Madoc, Lucas and Sadie.

 Charlotte thought it was fun too.

 Lucas really enjoyed playing with Sadie and Madoc, but especially liked staying close to Sadie.

 Then it was Charlotte’s turn for a ride on the sea horse.

 They had an area where the “kids” could dress up like fish.  Neil liked that part.

There is a place where waves crash over a glass covered area.  The kids really like being under the crashing waves.

 One of my favorite areas is the jellyfish.  They are so pretty.

 These are the moon jellies.  We swam through a large school, flock or herd of moon jellies while scuba diving in St. Thomas.  Maybe that is one of the reasons this area makes me think of happy thoughts.

 After the aquarium, another happy part of the trip is to get hot fudge sundaes at Ghirardelli’s which is very close to the Fish Hopper.  It is always delicious.

It was a very fun day, especially because I was able to spend the day with four grandchildren.

Two Days before Thanksgiving: The Beach

Neil, Ashley, Sadie, Madoc and Charlotte arrived early for Thanksgiving.  The actually arrived the Saturday night before Thanksgiving.  Sunday evening, Neil and Ashley went to a hotel in San Francisco and left the kids with us.  They returned on Tuesday.  We had a good time without them. 

We started the day on Tuesday, two days before thanksgiving with Belgian waffles with strawberries and whipped cream.  There were different levels of hunger. 

 Charlotte did not eat much.

 Charlotte helped Grandma do the dishes.

 In the afternoon, When Neil and Ashley returned, we went to the beach just in time for low tide. Charlotte wanted to get down and play but it was not safe.  Sadie and Madoc explored the tide pools.

 They found star fish and sea anemones.

 And logs to walk on.

 Sadie and Grandma waded out as far as their shorts would let them.

 Madoc and I found a great spot for watching the waves come in.

 We were then joined by Sadie and Grandma.

 We then spent a little time chasing and being chased by the waves as the tide was coming in.

Sadie was keeping her clothes dry as she avoided the waves…

Visit to Arizona November 12-13

I am almost 2 months behind on posting.  With all of the traveling Mom did in October and the first part of November, she missed out on primary sacrament programs, but then found out that Sadie and Madoc were going to be in their primary program the 2^nd Sunday in November.  So after Mom rested up three or four days from her drive back from Indiana, we drove to Arizona for the weekend, leaving Friday after work and arriving early Saturday morning.  After resting up a few hours, we went to the pecan festival In Sahuarita.  Ashley ran in the race that morning (I think it was about 8 miles.  I knew the exact number 7 weeks ago but I cannot find it in my brain’s storage compartment any more.)  We arrived just after the race and then went over to the festivities.

Sadie got a butterfly painted on her face.

 Madoc got a fire breathing dragon painted on his arm.

 While the painting was going on, Neil found remote control cars.

 Next we went to the animal petting area and pet the goats.

 And rabbits

 And helped get the turkey fat for thanksgiving.

 The learned what it means to eat like a pig.

 And eat like a horse (pony)

 Sadie and Madoc spent time on the inflated obstacle course and had a good time.

 Then they rode ponies with very happy faces.

 Once back at the house in the afternoon, Sadie showed Grandma how to use a computer.

 Charlotte tasted the toys.

And was learning how to use a GPS receiver.

 Charlotte is good a playing football.  She was able to keep the ball from Sadie and Grandma.

Charlotte loves her mother.

 She also likes going to church with her dad.

And she really likes her grandpa.