We drove to Oregon this week to spend Thanksgiving with our Northwest family. We enjoyed a bit of winter weather on the drive up, but the weather down was absolutely beautiful and we got home in record timing. On Thanksgiving morning we walked the three-mile walk for their Give-N-Gobble. It was 23 degrees, Erik made it about a mile and then started crying and told Pedar his toes were freezing, so Pedar took him back to the car to warm up. Casey and I finished the walk with everyone else. Erik may have needed warmer socks and shoes than his regular cotton socks and running shoes. Oops, where is my parenting medal?

Thanksgiving was super relaxing and fun. We walked their adorable dog Murphy, played in the park and then their friends and family started arriving around 3 p.m. Beautiful Brynley, Jesse and Shelley's five-month-old baby girl was passed around. Aunts, Uncle's, Friends and Grandparents chatted the night away. Leif and Sierra and family put on a delicious spread of food and we all enjoyed ourselves!

The next day, after a bit of downtime, we went over to their friends, Angie and Eric's beautiful house. They have two darling sons and the kids had a blast while we enjoyed watching the Civil War game. The Beavers did WAY better than expected and we all had a great time cheering them on!

The next morning came too quickly and we kissed our awesome Northwest Bruce's goodbye so we could head back to Cali. We left at 8 a.m. and got home around dinner time. When we got home we stopped by  Michael's, because after 15 years of the same ribbon on our Christmas tree and ten hours of driving to stew over it, I decided I HAD to have new ribbon. The boys MADE me promise that when we got home we would decorate the tree, so we did.

It is always hard saying goodbye to Leif, Sierra, Ava, Lola and Murphy.  I wish we could meet monthly for dinner and playtime. I wish we could have the girls over for sleepovers. I wish we could go to their soccer games and track meets. But NO, we live ten hours away. We did our best to show them that we ADORE and LOVE them. We look forward to every visit.

Hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving. Love and hugs to you and yours.