Thanksgiving 2014

After coming home from our trip, we enjoyed a nice Thanksgiving day at home. 

 First thing in the morning, we ran a 5k race in Sacramento with 27,768 other people. It was a miracle that we found each other at the finish line. 

After the race mom got right to work and made a yummy Thanksgiving feast.  It was delicious.

  Sarah and Lily picked flowers from the garden for our table.

We felt very thankful this year for our family, health, and the gospel.

Tenaya Lodge and Yosemite Trip

We took a trip to Yosemite the during the week of Thanksgiving break.   We stayed at Tenaya Lodge outside the south entrance to Yosemite.  The Lodge was really nice and  had lots of fun activities and restaurants. It was decorated for Chistmas with a huge tree in the entrance, a gingerbread house and lots of other fun things to look at.

The first thing we tried to do when we got there was take some family pictures.  Some turned out better than others.

 We had a lot of fun hiking and exploring in Yosemite and doing fun activities around the lodge. Yosemite is less busy and really beautiful even when there isn't much water in the winter.  We hiked up to Mirror Lake (which was empty) but we were able to go in the middle of the meadow and take some pretty pictures of the huge mountains around us.

 Each kid got to pick an activity to do on the last day.  Lily picked Ice Skating and Alex and Sarah picked mountain biking.  So Daddy and Mommy split up to save time.  Mom and Lily went Ice Skating and Dad, Sarah, and Alex went mountain biking.  We also spent each evening swimming and sitting in the hot tub.  It was nice to play and relax together.

 

 One of the days we spent exploring Mariposa Grove, which was just outside the south entrance to Yosemite.  We hiked through the beautiful grove of Redwoods.  Dad, Sarah, and Alex hiked up to a cabin in the forest that looked like a doll house next to the giant trees.

The trip went by so fast and before we knew it we were getting ready to come home.  We made lots of fun memories and are already looking forward to coming back to Yosemite.

Halloween

We had a fun Halloween this year.  Sarah was Mike Wozowski from Monster's Inc, Alex was a Red Panda, and Lily was Elsa from Frozen.  Mom didn't get many good pictures of their costumes.  Luckily, Dad took one at Intel right before they went trick-or-treating at his work.

 On the day of Halloween we carved pumpkins and got ready to have some friends come over for a party and trick or treating. Sarah went to a party after dinner with her teenager friends.

 We have lots of trick-or-treating in our neighborhood. Mom gave out 3 extra large bags of candy and pirate patches, pencils, and glow in the dark teeth.   It was lots of fun!!

 Lily is right at the age where she loves to plan parties.  She helped Mom all day get ready for the festivities.

 After the party and trick-or-treating the kids sat and sorted out their goods.

Lily's Apple Hill Field Trip

One of the benefits of having all of your kids in school is being able to volunteer there.  I was able to go with Lily on her field trip to Apple Hill.  Apple Hill is a community of apple orchards just up the freeway from us towards Lake Tahoe.  It is a very beautiful place to visit and yummy too.  Lily and Mom had fun riding the bus together and then learning about making apple cider.  We also got to pick apples and ride the train.

 It was a beautiful fall day!