Enjoying the Blessings of Children and Grandchildren

On Tuesday, November 22, we traveled up to WA to spend Thanksgiving with Eric, Chelsea, and Addison!  What fun it was to see them all and to be there for Addison's first Thanksgiving.  Since our little family will be traveling down to CA for Christmas (yay!), Grandma and Grandpa had to bring a few Christmas presents early--Chelsea and Eric will not need any extra carry-on items for their return flight in December!  --Grandma's and Grandpa's logic.

Later with the cookie jar toy.....

Chelsea prepared a wonderful turkey dinner with all the trimmings.  Jenny was her assistant with the turkey and also put together a wonderful cranberry salsa and the creamy pearl onion dish.  I know this picture isn't clear, but you can still see the cute smiles of our chefs.

Chelsea did most of the prep work ahead of time, and even had time to go out for a run on Thanksgiving morning.  Here are our beautiful tables--

            

Hmmmm, just right!

    Eric brushed up on his carving technique by watching a YouTube video, and did a great job.  Eric and Chelsea's good friends Amanda and Johnny joined our Thanksgiving group, and we had a wonderful time together.  Amanda brought two Southern style dishes that were really yummy as well.  She also brought an apple pie and a maple custard pie to add to our pumpkin pie.  We had a feast! 

Here is Addison's Thanksgiving outfit-

Here she is enjoying her new book.

 And Grandpa and Addison-

Black Friday turned out to be a beautiful sunny day--perfect for our day at the Northwest Wild Animal park.  On the drive to the park we had spectacular views of Mt. Rainier. 

Here are a few of the animals we saw.

We saw alot more: wolves, black bears, grizzly bears, coyotes, bob cats, bald eagles, mountain goats...pretty much any animal you would find in the wild in the northwest.  It was really a great park.

Addison also joined right in with watching the football games.  Here she is saying, "Touchdown!"

Auntie Natalie had fun with her niece and Addison gave her lots of kisses!

As you can see, Chelsea was even able to get a little start on her Christmas decorating before we headed home on Sunday.  We had a wonderful time, filled with precious memories.  Thank you Eric and Chelsea!