Thanksgiving in the Wilderness

We had a wonderful and mellow Thanksgiving this year. Just the 5 of us at home with a few good things to eat. I'm sure we could have joined in with the Hixon crew this year, since we have the family tie, but they were having ALL 10 children and their families for dinner. I think that is close to 60 people... so we opted for our own family meal. At first Billy suggested I buy a nice piece of salmon for dinner and we just make it really easy on ourselves. I however, really wanted turkey (and the leftovers to follow) since we only cook one once a year. So turkey it was. I also made cheesy potatoes, oven baked green beans, butter leaf salad and a layered jello in individual cups. We used the help of Pillsbury and had croissants :) All in all, not to much fuss, I didn't even end up making apple crisp like I planned. We had root beer floats.

William had collected some fall leaves at the playground in the morning where Billy was playing football with the elders quorum. (I got to go for a run with Jamie!) He put those along the table runner to decorate for our feast and he did a great job.
Zachary was sleeping when everything was ready to dig into and William refused to try anything. So, Billy and I sat down together and ate on our china and enjoyed every bite.

I can't forget about our thankful tree we made during family night the week of Thanksgiving! The boys were really excited to hand me leaves and tell me things they were thankful for and then hang them up. It was a full tree. Everything from family & primary to dirt & macaroni and cheese.
I sure am thankful for my family! I'm glad we have this special day set aside to celebrate our gratitude and I think I would like to start setting a few more aside during the year as well- one day a year is just not enough :) Maybe we will celebrate quarterly.

A funny thing about Thanksgiving in the wilderness that I have noticed the past several years...
We have wild turkeys that hang around our neighborhood everyday. I don't think there is a day that they aren't by someones house and when it's by ours the boys chase them away. (I don't care for the turkey poop in the yard) Every year at Thanksgiving, the turkeys are no where to be found! I have made note of this each year we have been here, that the turkeys disappear for a few days around the Thanksgiving holiday. It's really weird. They must smell their kind being cooked and they hide or something. Anyway, they are back now that Turkey day is over.

Santa Monica Mountains Trail Race

On Sunday (I will repent) I ran my first trail race! It was an awesome experience, a beautiful day, and a great location. My friends Lauren and Kevin Gleason convinced me to sign up for this race about a month ago and run it with them. Lauren & I signed up for the 18K and Kevin was going for it all in the 50K. The morning of the race I fed Jameson around 5am, got up and out of the house right after 6am and down to the Gleason's home where we all left together at 645am. We drove down to Oxnard and then out to the PCH, just past Point Mugu and parked along the ocean next to La Jolla canyon. Walked in, grabbed our bib numbers and about 35 minutes later we were running on the trails. The race started with uphill switch backs all the way to the top of the first little mountain, about 2.5 miles. I surprised myself and jogged all the way up. Normally I don't make it very far running uphill and I end up hiking instead. Once we were at the top, the view was gorgeous! Beautiful blue sparkling ocean, clear and crisp morning and perfect running conditions. It worked out in our benefit that it had rained the day before because the trails weren't slippery and had just the right amount of stick to them. There was only a couple spots where the mud stuck to my shoes enough that I had to slide my feet on the rocks to take the extra inch of weight off. Anyway, the trails were nice and there was only one really challenging climb from mile 6.5 to mile 8. My legs were really tired by that point but I knew it would be pretty much all down hill from there, so I ran. It was nice to descend into the finish area. I ended up surprising myself again when I finished in 1:55. I thought for sure it was going to take me around 2 and half hours. I also was the 3rd girl to finish, right behind Lauren, so I got a ribbon! I've never placed in a race before. Pretty cool.

I got home at 2pm and was very ready to feed Jameson again. It was really nice to have a morning to myself, to be outside enjoying God's beautiful creation and get some good exercise and time away. I REALLY needed it.

Fire

Tonight I started our first fire of the cold season in the fireplace. It only took me one try :) It never even made it past 65 degrees in our house today... a big change from last weeks 95+ degree weather we had. Maybe that's why Jameson is a little under the weather. Well, it felt like a fall day today anyway. Can't wait for Billy to come home from New York, I'm tired.

 

On another note, I really need to finish sewing the Christmas stockings I started at the beginning of the year :)

October!

Where did the month go! It wasn't even a big fire month and I still didn't find time to write things down. Well, it was a hot and beautiful month in Santa Barbara with only one local fire. Besides that, we practiced for the Primary program a lot (William did not say his part) oh well, we tried :)














We went apple picking

































Went to the Pumpkin patch

Hosted our 3rd annual neighborhood pumpkin carving night

 and got dressed up for Trunk or treat

 

 

 

Here is the whole crew at a neighborhood Halloween party this last weekend. Billy left this morning to go and help with the storm clean up in New York, so we were short a captain hook today. It was another fun family coordinating year though with Peter Pan. William sure made a cute one. And once I told Zachary that he wouldn't get any treats from people without his glasses and hat on, he made the cutest John I have ever seen :) Jameson just hung on my hip as little Micheal and I was Wendy the Mom. Appropriate I think.  Happy Halloween & Happy October.

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Mr. Independant

This morning William and Zachary got out their power tools to play with. They like to go around the house and "fix" things for me. Their are a few that take batteries and actually spin and move. William discovered that one of these had run out of batteries and he was determined to make it work. So, he went to the patio where we keep the screw drivers, said to himself (out loud) lefty loosey, and opened the battery panel. He then removed the old batteries, went and got two AA batteries from the drawer and replaced them in the tool and put the battery panel back on. Righty tighty and good to go! He then showed me his handy work, "look Mom, it works now."  All by himself.

What a guy. Good work William!

Cuckoo Clock

Well, William's birthday (and mine) has come and gone. It was a fun weekend of celebrating even though Billy was gone in Washington fighting fires. We spent Friday down in Redondo Beach with my friend Camie and her family. It was so nice to see them and I'm so excited that Camie lives so much closer now! We even happened to see the space shuttle being flown in on a jet into LAX (I think). It was an awesome sight. On our birthday day, we had a mellow day at home, opening gifts and hanging out. In the evening our next door neighbors threw us a party, complete with a train pinata for the kids and amazing crab legs for dinner. It was soooo nice of them to do that because I wasn't about to plan and throw a party with 3 small ones by myself. We had settled on the fact that there would be no party this year. It was wonderful to celebrate with all the neighbors.
So, as I said before, William had been asking for a cuckoo clock for his birthday for a while now. On the Thursday before his special day I took him to the clock shop in Solvang to look at the clocks there. He found one (with my help) and we bought it! We finally hung it up the other day, when Billy got home, and it is a lot of fun to have in the house. It makes the boys smile every time it cuckoos. It gives a single cuckoo on every half hour and then of course a cuckoo for every hour :) It will hopefully become a Wrenn family heirloom.

He also got a lightning mcqueen bike accessory kit for his birthday equipped with a bike pouch, the other request he had made.

Happy Birthday William (and me)haha

8 Hours

I have to write down that Jameson slept from 830pm to 7am last night! Which means I got a solid 8 hours of sleep!! He was only stirring at 7 but I needed him to eat in a bad way.... so I got him up. He was still kinda sleepy and fell back asleep until 830 so I had to pull out the pump. It was so nice, for both of us. He needed it, he was really feeling a lot better today. I know I needed it too! Billy has been gone for 16 days now and my patience is worn thin and I am very exhausted. Hooray for a little recovery night! Thanks Jameson! What a good baby you are.