2/7/14

Thanksgiving in Cambria

-Grant and Gus finding treasures-
Prepare yourselves......this post has LOTS of pictures. 
-Em frantically searching for sea glass- 
 We went to Cambria with Kyle, Emily and their cute boys for Thanksgiving (I know, it's February, but after this post I'm all caught up!!).  
It was a lot of fun. 
 It was nice to play with this cute boy for a few days.  We had only met him one other time, and he was only a couple months old then.  He is such a sweet little baby.
 Ava and Gus became fast friends and pretty much stayed together most of the trip.  Ava and Grant still refer to Gus as "our friend we played with that one time".
 We visited the elephant seals.
 This fella was GINORMOUS!!!!  Seriously the size of an SUV.


 Fighting seals.  I could have stayed there all day watching them.  It was crazy to watch them slither/plop across the sand.
 Very ugly creatures, yet incredible.
 Kyle, Adam, Noah and I went to Hearst Castle (Em volunteered to stay home with all the tinies).  
 This place was absolutely amazing.  Just thinking that someone actually LIVED here is so strange to think about.  Can you imagine?!?!!!
 The front door.  EVERYTHING at the castle is so ornate and extravagant.
 The main fireplace.  The whole house was decorated for Christmas time, so that was fun to see.
 The dining room looked just like the dining room on Harry Potter.
 The ceiling in the dining room.
 I'm sure one of Kyle's dreams is to be a 1940's rich gentlemen.
 Noah chillin' at the big pool.
 Wouldn't that be so fun to swim in that giant pool?!

 The indoor pool.  All that yellowish color you can see on the walls and in the pool is gold inlay!!
 Watching the sunset.
 Pie night.  A lady in my ward told me about one of their family traditions for Thanksgiving.  They have pie night the night before Thanksgiving.  I thought it was a great idea, that way you can enjoy the pie (and eat more of it), because you aren't so stuffed from eating dinner.  
We decided to try it and eat pie the night before (of course, there was still lots left over for the next day).  Em and I went a little over board with the food quantity (we made enough food for about 5-6 families instead of just 2).  We had 3 pies (pumpkin, banana cream and apple) and they were all SO YUMMY!! 
Thanksgiving day we decided to try our hand at crabbing.  I read crabbing is a bit more difficult south of Monterey, but still doable.  We were supposed to use raw chicken, but didn't have any, so we just put hot dogs in the bate cage (I think that was our problem). 
Needless to say, we didn't catch anything.  Someday that crab net WILL catch a crab. 
Thanksgiving dinner was delicious! I doubled my roll recipe (again, not sure why I felt the need to make so much food), so the rolls were enormous.
The kids table/coffee table.  It was kind of nice to have things VERY simple.  No fancy dinnerware or table decorations. 
A few months ago when we were talking about traditions, all my kids brought up how we acted out the Thanksgiving story.  They all said they wanted that to be one of our traditions.  So, keeping to tradition we acted out the Thanksgiving story.  We did bring some dress ups, but were limited a bit, so we had super hero pilgrims (Grant and Gus) and Indians (Noah and Ava).
The Indians teaching the super hero pilgrims how to plant corn (mandarins).

Bravo! Bravo!
We visited Morro Bay on Friday.
Watched some seals.
Walked down the boardwalk and checked out some of the shops.  We also played on the beach at Morro Bay.   Forgot my camera at this beach, but it was a really fun one. 
Playing at the beach, waiting for the sunset.

Em brought chocolate rocks and as the kids were looking for really hard for the chocolate rocks, she would sneakily drop some on the ground. The kids thought it was the coolest thing ever. 




Thanks Kyle and Emily (and Gus and Oliver) for spending Thanksgiving with us.  It was nice and relaxing and we had a lot of fun. 

3 comments:

mammasweet said...

I was hoping to see the Cambria pictures. Rob and I went to Pismo Beach for our honeymoon. We toured the Hearst Castle and Morrow Bay then (5 years ago) and loved the experience. I know you're getting ready to come for the funeral, we're excited to see you.

Ambs said...

I've been to Hearst Castle too! I would love to go back someday, but it was pretty awesome to see your pictures from there too. I played the best trick on my neice Alexis when we were by the concessions there. I asked her if the wanted a Hearst doughnut. She said yes so I punched her in the shoulder and said "Hearst don't it"... I was so funny ;)

The Yoder's Five said...

This post makes me want to go to California so bad!!!