A dream Thanksgiving

It really was.

First, we got to go see Avery perform in the Kindergarten Pie feast.

They sang about 5 Thanksgiving songs and it was probably sweeter than the pie we ate afterwords.

After the feast, we literally jumped in the car and drove to San Lois Obispo California to see Trav's brother's family. 

This place is California's best kept secret. It's in the central coast, so not crazy amounts of people and it's SO gorgeous! Don't get me wrong, its still California. There are hippies that make you buy grocery sacks when you go grocery shopping. But if someone told me I had to live here, I don't think I would cry.

This is Kevin's backyard

We went on a cousin hike

And of course, we beached it up

This girl has visited the beach twice in her short little 6 months

She is gonna be a beach babe!

Oh and I tried surfing for the first time. I loved it. I can totally see why some people throw their lives away and live on the beach. There is this weird magic when you are out there. Oh and 3 weeks later, some guy got bit by a great white shark in the exact spot I was surfing. YOLO.

Kimberly had the most amazing Thanksgiving dinner. 

ambiance. check.

company. check.

amazing food. check.

Probably the best Thanksgiving meal I've had in years (no offense to anyone).

 After dinner, we all just hung out by the fire. 

Then eventually, this happened

To explain how great of a time we had on Thanksgiving, I will just mention that we didn't watch one lick of football that day. That tells ya something!

Shane, Jesse and Alex were so much fun!

SLO drive in movie

Thanks for such a magical long weekend Charles family!

Scary

Halloween this year was pretty fun! My parents, Sadie and Berkeley came up from Utah to celebrate!

Isla was so excited to meet her new cousin Berkeley. They both dressed up like cabbage patch kids.

And the rest of us? Well, we are just freaks.

I think this guy might be the biggest freak out of all of us

That is just creepy Dad!

The whole night was fun, exhausting and memorable!

(thanks aunt Titi for the haunted houses, my girls were so HAPPY)

Oh yeah, really fast too. We went to a Halloween party the week before at our friend's house. We were supposed to dress up like TV or movie characters

Can you guess?

 Alex Trebbek and Ken Jennings!

Joe and Amber?

Those weird aliens on Sesame street

Harry Potter and zombie Sarah Palin 

Shoot, I don't have any of the other couples pictures! 

But it was a way fun night!!!

Halloween is pretty awesome

M.O.M (My Own Marathon)

Globe is a special place. For example, there will be a nice 250k dollar house and right next door will be a double wide. For another example, there are about 12 old antique shops and zero Costcos. People do things just a little bit different here. 

Enter a really nice man named Bryan Chambers who loves running.  He always puts on his own marathon. Its actually called the MOM race. It stands for My Own Marathon. He organizes the whole thing for free. 

So Kenzie, Aaron and I sought out to do it. They picked me up a little before 6am and off we went to conquer the MOM race. It started up by the Pinal mountains. 

When we got there, we were just waiting for all the other racers to show up. We didn't have to wait long. All 7 of us arrived.

Then Bryan made the start of the race official by having us sing the national anthem. He had the actual music playing, and Aaron pulled up a picture of the American flag on his phone. At that point, it was time for the race to begin. 

We had the choice of running a 5k, 10k, half or full marathon. He had marked the race the day before and left mile markers along the route. He also dropped water bottles along the road for us. 

He had his daughter and his wife drive along the routes the whole morning making sure that everyone was OK. They also took pictures

I decided I would do the half marathon. And guess what? I won. I came in 1 out of 2 competitors! They even gave me an old bowling trophy for my efforts! Kenzie won the 10K and Bryan won the full marathon.

It was a fun and very unique experience. Who knows, maybe one year the MOM race will be a Boston qualifier? 

Besides the quirkiness of the race, I think this was my next favorite thing that day

Oh wait, and this

This just showed up on my doorstep 2 months after the race.

Ha!

PS The lady on the top is Bryan's actual mom. LOL!!!