November Happenings

 Leland came home one afternoon so excited with this "new" game that a friend made for her. She thought it was the coolest thing ever. She was a little shocked when I told her that we used to make them when I was younger too. What do you call it anyway?

 This picture is for my sister, who says that blogs are only for people to brag about the good things, so I decided to take a picture of what my family room often looks like. Toys scattered and a overflowing laundry basket of clothes that need to folded. After I snapped the shot, Leland asks, "Mom, why are you taking a picture of a dirty room? Who wants to see that?"

 We always love when Nana gets to visit. We are so happy she is retired now and we get to see her so much.

We like to play dress up. There is usually only one princess and two super heroes in our house.

 I cooked my very first Thanksgiving dinner and had lots of helpers in the kitchen. My dad, his girlfriend, and my lil sister, Layni came for dinner. I didn't get any good pictures, but the food was delicious and there was enough to probably feed 25 people. Good thing we love leftovers.

 The girls had a dance party after dinner.

Fall Leaves

I love fall and the beautiful colors all around. We had a great time playing in the leaves and even had fun trying to clean them all up.

This tree is in the yard across the street. We took these gorgeous pictures of this tree one foggy fall morning. After taking the pictures, our neighbor told us that us he planted that tree after their first child was born and now they have uprooted and moved it to three different homes. We didn't realize that it had such sentimental value, but now they have some fun pictures of it.

Each of the girls had a great time taking turns using the leaf blower.

Then they decided to just have a dance party while Chuck and I continued to work.

Charly was so cute shaking her hips back and forth.

Richmond Zoo

On a teacher workday back in November I took the girls to the Richmond Metro Zoo with some friends. The weather was fabulous and we had so much fun. 

Feeding the giraffes and the goats were a huge hit. The giraffes tongues were so long and they would just reach and reach for that food. Notice the goat standing on the donkey's back in the top right picture. He obviously didn't want to fight the crowd on the lower end of the fence. What a nice friend that donkey is.

These kids see each multiple times a day and cherish every minute they get to spend together.

The fall leaves were gorgeous.

Proof that I can overcome fears for my children and purposely walk inside an inclosed space full of birds. My heart starts racing just thinking about it.

I love this zoo because you can see a lot of animals pretty close up. It was such a fun day.

Virginia Beach

We went to Virginia Beach for the weekend for me to attend a seminar for work. We decided it was a great chance for all of us to have a mini vacation. Howard, my boss, rode down with us and we all stayed at hotel on Friday night.

Here's a little synopsis of the first night of our trip:

• During the drive down, we stopped for a quick bathroom break and right as we walk into the bathroom, Lucy starts throwing up in the trash can. She must have been car sick, but never told me so. I was so grateful that she found a trash can. 
• It was ridiculously windy when we arrived. Like crazy blow-you-over wind.
• We went swimming at the hotel pool that evening and had a lot of fun. 
• I took the girls back to the hotel room while Chuck and Howard went out to get some food. Our ceiling light in our hotel room was burnt out so we had asked for someone to come replace the light bulb. Apparently, the entire light fixture needed to be replaced so there was a man standing on a ladder in our room soon after we returned to our room.
• As he is fixing the light, rewiring the new fixture, some sparks fly from the wires, our lights flicker, then after a few minutes, all the lights go out. The man thought he had blown a circuit on the floor, but it turned out that the entire hotel and actually a few blocks were all out of power! Including the restaurant where Chuck and Howard went to get food.
• Now I have to get the girls ready for bed and put them to bed by myself and in the dark. The lights remained out for over an hour. Since where Chuck went for food was out of power too, it took them so long to come back with the food the girls had already fallen asleep.
• The man who was fixing our light felt bad about it for some reason, even though the power being out wasn't his fault, and he came back to our room apologizing for there being no lights and gave me a $15 gift certificate to the hotel restaurant for breakfast in the morning. Awesome!

 

It was still seriously windy the next morning. The girls ran up and down the ramp and when they would reach the end and they were out of the protection of the building the wind would hit them almost blowing them over. They thought it was a hilarious game.

Trying to get a picture by the beach proved to be very difficult because of the wind. We didn't make it any where close to the water. It was much better sitting inside with a great view

While I went to my seminar, Chuck took the girls to First Landing National Park and Nauticus.
Chuck can add more about what they did later.

NC visit

We went to NC to for a weekend while Tiffany and Ryan were visiting from CA.

We went to their ward's Trunk or Treat which included a family dance with a bubble machine. At the time, three of Chuck's sisters were all in the same ward. One moved that weekend to a different ward.

Tiffany and Ryan blessed Zelda Kate while we were all together.

The best we could get of the 12 cousins + 1 honorary cousin.

Since the McBrides moved into their house that Saturday we were all together, they did not have any TVs set up yet. The boys watched a Stanford football game all huddled around an iPad. It was hilarious!