we had one weekend free between our trip out east and thanksgiving in which we got stuff done. not terribly exciting, but good to do.
we had a preview of thanksgiving festivities on tuesday afternoon at "camp", where they invite the parents to come every year to enjoy all the wonderful thanksgiving foods. greta was sooo excited about a party and even more so when she found out that both mom and dad were going to come. it was good catching up with the other parents and all the wonderful people there.
for thanksgiving itself, we had a fairly leisurely morning of packing the car and watching football and the macy's parade (started late enough that we had the ability to fast forward, which was clutch with a nearly 3 year old). we saved it on the dvr so far, which is good because she is enamored with the rockettes dance routine and the kicks. we've had to watch that bit a few extra times.
we headed up to evan's aunt & uncle's - barby & alan's - in the afternoon to settle in for dinner. greta was very excited to see her cousin aidan and they successfully played and kept each other entertained for most of the day, meal and early evening. it was a wonderful feast, although my stomach can't squeeze quite as much in these days. we headed out after dessert and onto our next destination - the jolly's house. we crashed there and then all caravaned up to start our stay in the tahoe house for the season.
there were a couple of particularly exciting things this year at our "opening weekend". while we couldn't ski yet as alpine opens this coming weekend, there was snow on the ground and more snow came down while we were there. the other excitement included a visit over to squaw valley resort friday night to roast marshmellows, listen to carolers, see santa & mrs. claus arrive by fire truck, light the big tree there and walk up the stairs right by us and give each of the kids a high-five. the kids were all caught up in the excitement (even though greta told evan and i later that she didn't like santa claus - ahh, the fickle nature of a 2 year old). the nice thing is that they continue many activities (free!) through new year's, so i am sure we will return in the coming weeks.
saturday we finished putting things away in the house, did some shopping and had a leisurely day. evan, greta and i took off around 4 so we could avoid sunday traffic and get home. what looked like the reminents of a significant spill and/or crash along 80 detered us a bit from our goal, but we made it home. sunday, we relaxed and picked up all the branches that had fallen over the weekend due to gusty winds (which is amazing given we've already had two storms with wind knock a bunch down already this fall).
onto another week of work and the beginning of december!
