Glad it's only once a year...

It officially looks like Christmas at our house!  I just have to say for the record, I love Christmas.  

BUT, I spent a whole day decorating, unloading boxes from storage, retrieving the christmas trees from the garage, vacuuming and vacuuming, cleaning, rearranging furniture, all just so in 3 weeks I can retrieve all the empty boxes, and repack it all to put it away only to do it all over again next year! 

Is is worth it?  Well, the smile on my daughters face as we decorated "the family tree,"  which is downstairs, with all the homemade and school ornaments, along with an ornament from all the places we have been, listening to her questions about how will Santa will fit down our gas fireplace, and how she can't wait for Christmas to get here (the innocence of children) I have to say Ok, it was worth it, but the exhaustion I felt by the end of the day, I have to say, I am glad it only comes once a year. 

Turkey In Cali

I always love going to California for a vacation or holiday.  It is always so much fun.  My brothers Brent and Brad always make sure we have nothing short of a fun, interesting, and sometimes even shocking good time.  When we come down, all of their friends they've had since high school make it a point to come see and hang out with us. They even call my mom "mom." Mike Pulley comes over and makes us shrimp tacos, and we always have to visit Victoria Gardens(which is the coolest mall ever), not to mention "The Hat" which has the best pastrami sandwiches. We also try and visit at least one of our many friends we have down in Cali.  One of my best friends from high school Stef and her family drove down to visit us.  It is always good catching up with her.  Since everyone has kids around the same age, they all get together and play.  They consider themselves all cousins.  It also is pretty much a tradition for everyone to get together for a good game of poker, mostly the guys, and the girls sit and chat.  Briaunna would have come with us but she had so much homework to do.  We missed her!

All in all, Thanksgiving was a great success!  I am very thankful for family and friends!  We love you all and look forward to next time! 

Stef, me, Hailey, mom, McKenzie and Noah

Brent and Scott doing Oh...what they pretty much did the whole time.

Me and Shannon(Brad's Girlfriend).  We both went from blonde to brown!

And the poker game... usually the shocking part of the trip...

my cute brothers and my mom