Thanksgiving dinner

With this being the last year that we are guaranteed to have all our children with us for Thanksgiving, we were lucky to be able to celebrate with just our family. It was also a great opportunity to teach Erin how to cook Thanksgiving dinner. She helped with the entire meal and I'm quite sure that she could duplicate the meal when she might need to. Even though it was just our little family, we still made all the traditional items we've always had (minus the green beans since they looked yucky at the grocery store).

I decided to document our family Thanksgiving dinner this year so that we'll always remember what we get to look forward to. I even included a less than flattering picture of myself just to prove that I exist in pictures.
Erin serving up the mashed potatoes

Parker helped make his favorite chocolate pie

Time to eat!

We have so much to be thankful for this year - especially for a wonderful, healthy, loving, and happy family.

Disney days

When we purchased our Disneyland passes, we checked the calendar of blackout days with our school calendar and decided that we would go over the Thanksgiving break. The only problem with our planning was that, unlike last year, almost all the schools in southern California had the whole week of Thanksgiving off of school. This made for a VERY crowded Disney experience. Despite the crowds, we were able to enjoy 2 days of fun at the happiest place on earth.

The highlights of our days were:

• Hanging with the Duvalls
• Watching the Christmas fireworks show
• Getting up close and personal with Mr. Incredible (played by someone we know)
• Riding Small World at night - the lights were BEAUTIFUL!
• Returning the next day with our whole family
• Watching our favorite show - Aladdin
• A magical snowfall on Main Street

Christmas is the BEST time of year at Disneyland!

Laguna Beach

We found that we had a whole afternoon with our entire family together. So we took a poll and the majority voted to head to the tide pools in Laguna Beach. The weather was AMAZING and we wished we had more time to spend there - but we made the most of every minute we had.
Checking out the sea life was the favorite activity of the day.

Bryant liked to go as far out on the rocks as he could.

The afternoon was so much fun that we didn't mind the fact that we were in the car as long as we were at the beach. Next time, we'll plan ahead and stay longer.

Marching Band Season

We have officially made it through our first year of marching band. I have to admit that I wasn't too excited about having Bryant in band, especially after watching the band flounder the last couple of years, but it ended up being a wonderful experience for Bryant. I've saved up pictures of the season to post all at once, so here's how the marching band season unfolded:

Band camp consumed the week before school started. The band practiced from 8:00am to 8:00pm with a 3 hour break in the afternoon. On the last day of band camp, the parents were invited to come watch the progress of the students. It was pretty impressive for only 1 week of practice.

Rick decided to climb to the top of the brick wall so that he could have a better view of the marching.

The band performed at each of the home football games. They played the national anthem at the beginning and then performed different parts of their competition program during the half times.

One thing that we didn't realize was how expensive band would be. To offset some of the costs, the band has had a few fundraisers. This one was at Shakey's Pizza. The band performed outside and then we all had pizza with a percentage of the sales going to the band program.

The band participated in 4 competitions this season in the "A" category (bands that have 60 or less members) and they took 1st place in every show!

Bryant is the trumpet in the middle (Rick is letting him play his Bach Stradivarius and Bryant feels pretty special to get to use such a great trumpet)

The awards presentations

Our whole family went to Mission Viejo for the last competion of the season. We stayed for the ENTIRE show (about 9 hours) so that we could see the big bands. Parker passed his time reading the Hunger Games series on my Nook.

Uncle Bobby was Bryant's biggest fan - even if our drum line was sub-par in his opinion. He came to 2 of the 4 competitions, he even sat through the 9 hours with a sore back. Thanks for being a great uncle!Now for the start of parade season.........