Left over - no!

Black Friday usually means shopping and left over dinners - but not for this fortunate family. We were treated to a marvelous spread of appetizers, thick steaks hot off the grill along with Lisa's famous twice baked potatoes, salads, greens and sour dough bread straight from San Francisco. The meal was topped off by chocolate fondue, and Noah took the lead in documenting this sweet treat. Enjoy! It is guilt and calorie free to look :-)

Time for Christmas!

Black Friday signals the first day of the Christmas season. The boys happily took on the job of getting rid of Thanksgiving - pumpkin tossing is now permissible! Bob took on the task of hanging lights outside and  then formed a human chain to take down the many fully loaded Christmas boxes from the attic.

Hunting

Lukas and Noah spent Black Friday creating in Pappy's garage. Lukas marveled at the many 'new tools' that Pappy had and felt it 'offered great and exciting opportunities to create new things, Mamma.'  The fields behind the house supplied all the materials for the weapons.

Happy Thanksgiving!

We celebrated Thanksgiving with our family in Missouri - our first Thanksgiving with family! There were much preparation, planning, cooking and decorating before we all sat down for a delicious and scrumptious feast. Although this has been a year of sudden losses and challenges, we realize we still have so much to be thankful for - such as family, near and far.

Three generations of sweets

Horsing around

Lukas and Noah are having fun exploring at Grammy and Pappys. I caught them out in the garage, horsing around, and hamming it up for the camera:

Not too tall for fun

The new TV finally arrived and while Bob and Lukas spent time installing the new device, Noah found the box entertaining and amusing. It will not be long before he will be too tall for even these large size boxes, he is catching up with his brother.

Lego League

This fall, Bob has coached the GermBuster Lego League team as the team set out to solve Food Safety Issues using Mindstorm and Lego. The league culminated in a Fall Exhibition where each of the team had a chance to show off accomplishments and design. Each team was encouraged to invite their family and friends to come and see the exhibition.  Lukas and Noah were fortunate to still have Mormor and Morfar in town, who patiently sat through the set up, exhibition and helped with tear down. A great culmination of a fun fall activity.

Butterflies

Pacific Grove is known for its Monarch Butterfly Sanctuary, a place where Monarch butterflies come to spend the winter. It is amazing to see the butterflies who gather here at the Central Coast every year. The butterflies who winter here is the fifth generation live longer butterflies, the next four generations will mate and die before the fifth one will find its way back to Pacific Grove next fall. Another of God's many wonders for us here on earth.
Mormor, Morfar, Lukas, Noah and Christina enjoyed a sunny walk through this amazing park almost filling up the memory card on every camera we brought in our attempts to capture these colorful creatures.

Mormor and Morfar

October ended with a fabulous trip to visit friends and November began with a bang as Lukas, Noah and Mamma arrived back home just in time to pick up Mormor and Morfar who traveled from Sweden to visit. Our kitchen counter looked like a fancy candy store as they unpacked their bags, and it did not take long before Mormor and Morfar began to tackle the 'to do' list. Mormor mended pants, ironed everything in sight, cooked dinners, and mixed up cookie dough for Christmas cookies. Morfar spent his time pulling out thousands of staples in our ones upon a time white dining room chairs, and then recovered them in much more practical blue plaid. Lukas and Noah had special time with their grandparents shopping  and watching movies while Bob and Christina took advantage of the built in babysitter and headed out for some adult time as a couple.
We did take advantage of the nice California weather to explore the area a bit - a trip to Monterey is not complete without watching the waves, and drinks on the beach.