November 2015

 We're getting rain! For the past month or six weeks, we've consistently received rain one or two days a week. We've already had more rainfall than all of last winter. We are grateful for it. Hopefully, El Nino will make a real dent in our drought.

We had no school on Veteran's Day, so we drove down to Sunnyvale to hang out with Chrissy and Suzanne and their kids. It's crazy to see how big our crew is getting. It all started when Hazel was just Gemma's age ...

Gemma is obsessed with all things princess right now. She has several dresses that she wears around the house, and each one turns her into a different princess - Elsa, Rapunzel, and Ella (Cinderella) are her favorites. Each costume change, my identity also changes, from Prince Hans, to Flynn Rider, to Prince "Kitten."  I am always her "daddy." (i.e. boyfriend) If we are not acting the characters out ourselves, we are playing them with Barbie dolls. This is nonstop, literally all day long. Obsessed, I say.

We explored a new park one Saturday while Todd was at drill. I've been hearing about this legendary slide since we moved to Livermore, but hearing about it just does not do it justice. The thing is super long! The kids were all in love with it, and being adventurous in how fast or slow they went, or head first, or laying down backwards.

There is also a creek at the park, so when the kids needed a break from the slide, they went into exploring mode. They never even made it to the play structure, and we were there for a couple of hours. We will have to return - Mission Hills Park in Pleasanton.

Sometimes you've just gotta let the kids hang out naked. Movie nights, breakfast for dinner, and long bubble baths; this is the stuff life is made of when Todd is out of town. (He was gone for most of a week in the middle of the month - thank you, Army.)

Hide and seek is getting epic over here. Hazel has a million great ideas for hiding spots, and is so nice to hide Gemma before she runs off.  Gemma is really, really good at staying still and quiet for a long time - we're talking like 10 minutes. It took Todd quite a while to find her here in the playroom:

We had Thanksgiving dinner early at home, and I decided that I will never do that again. Thanksgiving is a potluck meal. Nothing is hard to make, but it's no fun to be in the kitchen all day long just to sit down for dinner with the kids like it's a regular night and have it all over with twenty minutes later. I was baking and cooking and washing dishes ALL DAY! For what? Potluck or bust, baby. If we don't join up with somebody else, I'm totally skipping it in the future.

We went to the movie theater to watch "The Good Dinosaur," which had looked so cute, but was a pretty big letdown. The last time we went to the theater was for Frozen. It's a big deal. Jack traded in his Halloween candy for his ticket, and Hazel spent $8 from her allowance bank to buy a ticket and not miss out. And it was not worth it. Bummer.

We spent the Thanksgiving long weekend at the beach in Watsonville. We rented a two-bedroom condo which was literally right on the sand. Here's our lodging, behind the kids:

We stayed for three nights, which was a new change for us. We generally have two-night getaways. The extra day made a positive difference. The whole trip was lovely. We relaxed and read a ton of books and played lots of games and did a lot of beach-combing. It was colder than we would have liked - at one point we were out there barefoot in puffy coats - but we had a sweet view from our condo, so we happily spent plenty of time indoors, watching the waves crash while we hung out there in front of the fireplace. We had the beach with us all day long, every day. Jack said he wished we lived there. He was so disappointed when we had to come home!

Hazel body boarded for a few minutes - just long enough to catch a wave - and then called it a day. It was pretty icy in the water!

During low tide, the water made these "islands" all over the beach. Hazel and Jack were in their own little world, walking along with their buckets, looking for shells and playing some make-believe game as they wandered far, far down the beach, at least a quarter mile, never looking back. They didn't even realize I was following them, they were so absorbed. I loved it!

We spent half a day at Point Lobos State Nature Preserve, hiking along the coast, looking at sea lions and otters, exploring the tide pools, and watching the sun set. That place is gorgeous! Todd and the kids found multiple abalone shells - the prized treasure of the tide pools!

This year was the first time our gratitude tree really took off and became a way to reflect on our blessings all month long. Hazel and Jack can both write now, and they were excited to come back to the tree in the days and weeks after our initial FHE lesson and add more leaves, listing things they were grateful for. This is one of my favorite traditions.