Ready or Not - Here Christmas Comes

The early part of December is always so busy with Christmas activities. I'm trying this year to think of Christmas not so much as a day but a season, if you will. It's a perspective shift, and I don't know if I'm explaining it very well. But I'm trying to find meaning in the different things we do together and not attack the items on a frantic to do list or think of Christmas as a "December 25th at 6:30 am" Event.

In that spirit, we put up the tree with Mickey and Dahlia last weekend. I love watching Jason haggle with the guys at the Christmas tree lot. It's pain and anguish for him, but he really does like a nice tree and you're never supposed to pay full price at a Christmas tree lot. The guy came down $10 first thing and we stopped our negotiations right there. Good enough. The tree turned out really cute.

We also went to the Festival of Trees on Saturday, which I love to do. I'm afraid Jason might never go with me and his Mom to the Festival of Trees again, because we both kept saying, "Oh, Jason, you could make that" and taking pictures like crazy. Like this stable scene. He could totally make that for me - right?!?

But we all enjoyed the pretty trees and the Kids Korner. I have to say how great it is that the price for tickets in the Kids Korner (4 for $1) is so reasonable. For $10 worth of tickets, each of the kids could have done 4-5 cute little crafts. I say "could have done" because Mickey quickly realized that the price of cookies at 1 ticket per cookie was a steal of a deal and he used 9 of his tickets to get cookies in a "to go" container. Stinker. But I really can't blame the kid. It was a good idea. And Dahlia wanted to spend her tickets "more wisely." She ended up making a cute snow globe, a reindeer ornament and getting her nails done, Anyway, yay for the Festival of Trees for cute, inexpensive crafts.

Saturday night we went to the annual Torgerson Family Christmas Party. Instead of Santa, the Grinch came to pass out presents this year. Which was awesome, but poor Mick was embarrassed because he happened to be wearing his Grinch sweater. He asked me, in all seriousness, if I'd brought a change of clothes for him in the car. Sorry, Mick, I don't have a diaper bag for you. Since you're 11 and all. But he decided to tough it up and sit on the Grinch's lap anyway so he could get his present. And sure enough, the Grinch loved that they were twinners. It was a fun kick-off to the Christmas craziness.

Happy Family-Versary

Happy anniversary to me and Jason. I'm loving these flowers 

and am grateful that security accepted delivery. 

A quiet moment to laugh at our photographer.

Grand exit.

And a very pretty cake fight.

We went to Ruth's Diner to celebrate our anniversary. Five points for the food and ten points for the location. Plus fifteen points for dear old Ruth and her peach blueberry cobbler.

Giving Thanks

Thanksgiving 2016 at the Thomas House looked a little something like this...

Thought For Today

Family Pictures 2016

See You In Four Years

Here's to the hard work each of us will need to do going forward to make sure the debacle that was the 2016 election never happens again. We're better than this.

Happy Halloween

Halloween is a holiday I enjoy simply because I get lots of pictures of my favorite trick-or-treaters.

This year, we had rice krispy pumpkin parties in Wisconsin.

And Utah.

We had Dorothy.

 And a lumberjack.

 And kitty cats.

 And soccer players, butterflies, and grim reapers?

 And Gingerbread and Snow Fluff - complete with Carly's Tail Dance.

Coming Soon to Mormon Messages

With my sense of direction, I'm probably the last person on earth who should be making a mad dash to the airport, trying to get certain documents in the hands of a certain General Authority before they catch a flight for their weekend assignments. But I made it. He made his flight. And it was awesome.

One More California Post

I promise this will be my final post on our California trip. To sum up, 19 people and 5-day park hopper passes at Disneyland is a lot of fun. (Although not so fun for the hosting staff at busy Anaheim restaurants when you're trying to seat 11 adults, 6 kids, and 2 infants.) The kids got to go trick-or-treating at Disneyland - and seriously - what's better than that? We rode a lot of rides and Jason only threw up once. (Never again will we ride the rockets at California Adventure.)  It was a once-in-a-lifetime trip we will never forget.

Dining with Daisy

To be honest, I don't understand the appeal of "meeting the characters" at Disneyland. I'm there for the rides, and the food, and the fun. Standing in line to get the signature of some college kid in a costume does not make sense to me. But there are people (i.e. children) who love to get these signatures and pictures. And if you're going to do them - character breakfasts are the way to go. No lines, no apps telling you which character is going to be where and when. You sit and eat and the characters come to you.

With that said, we had breakfast with Mickey & Friends at Paradise Pier. I don't like to think about what this probably cost Jason's Mom. But we enjoyed an all-you-can-eat breakfast buffet (with yummy fresh fruit and Mickey Mouse pancakes) while the characters came around to our table. You can see how much the little girls loved meeting Minnie.

Ok, so this Goofy is plastic but we met "the real one" too. He just didn't have a cool surf board to pose with.

And now, if I could get a drum roll please... I'd like to show you what I call "the money shot." Here is Dahlia getting her 5 minutes of fame with Daisy Duck. This is the picture we went to the character breakfast to get. Success.

Sunny San Diego

San Diego is one of my favorite vacation spots. The weather is perfect, the beaches are perfect, the food is perfect. If I was a trillionaire, I'd move there today. Another thing I love about San Diego is the San Diego Zoo. (Or the San Diego 200 - as my sister-in-law called it when she saw the big welcome sign. She won't live that one down for awhile.) It's huge and you could honestly spend a week there and not see everything. I also firmly believe it was designed by the owners of IKEA - it's easy to get in but it's impossible to know where you are or to find a way out. If I'm lucky enough to visit the zoo again, I'm going to take the train ride that drives you by all the "areas" so I at least have an idea what is there.

I love the enclosures at the San Diego Zoo. They're very spacious and there's so many beautiful plants and trees everywhere. They've also done a great job of providing ample shade at the zoo, which I'm sure they did for the animals but it's also great for the human visitors. I loved the panda bears.

 And the polar bear you can barely make out behind me in this picture.

 How cute is this picture of Dahlia?

After the zoo, we went to another of my favorite spots in San Diego - Seaport Village. It's right on the ocean and there are lots of little restaurants and touristy shops. We enjoyed the yummy pizza and an incredible sunset. By the way, I took the picture of the sailboat below and I thought it turned out quite nice. Hard to mess that shot up though...

I saw this shirt at one of the shops and I could not have said it better myself. Seriously, how did we get to the point that Hilary Clinton and Donald Trump (Donald Trump?!?) are our nation's presidential candidates? I do not understand. But we won't go into that now....

I'm known to be quite the softie when it comes to anyone under the age of 12. But even I would not have said yes to the $25 fee The Bird Guy charges you to take pictures at Seaport Village. Enter Grandma Torgerson - who gladly paid the $25 and I'm sure a generous tip for these pictures. She spoiled us rotten on this trip and The Bird Guy benefited from that generosity as well.

On the drive back to our condo, someone snapped this picture from the freeway as we passed another of my favorites - The San Diego Temple. It was too late to stop and explore the temple grounds but it's always impressive to turn the corner on the I-5 and see the breath-taking Princess Temple (not it's real name). Until next time, San Diego.

A Day at the Beach

We spent a wonderful week in California with Jason's family. I'll try to catch up on my blog in bite-sized chunks. Here are some pictures from our day at Newport Beach. Note: Jason's sister is a professional photographer - so all of our California pictures that look like they were taken by someone who knew what they were doing - were taken by someone other than me.

So I had wrongly assumed that I was the member of our family who was most obsessed with the ocean. I've always loved the waves and was most excited about Beach Day when we talked about our upcoming trip. And then we actually got to the ocean - and it was Jason who went crazy. For most of the afternoon, he was the head bobbing in the ocean waiting for the next wave about 10 feet further out than I was comfortable with.

We bought cheap body boards at the Anaheim Target "for the kids" before we went to Newport - but it was Jason who had the most fun with them. I'm glad someone captured on camera the moment he walked back and handed the board off to Dahlia. Because she didn't see much of "her" board that afternoon.

What a picture perfect day. We loved it!!!