back to real life...

Be warned.  There are lots of pictures in this post.

We are back from vacation, and came home with Ikea furniture to assemble, TONS of laundry to do and put away, the Mr. has school and presentations and finals next week...along with the regular duties of everyday.

But we had SUCH a great trip.  LOVE IT!  We were able to have family from Utah, Washington, and us from Idaho, all together.  It was an awesome thanksgiving.  My favorite on record!  I don't even know where to begin we were so exhausted every day.

Here are some of the things we did while we were there:

In-N-Out (4 or 5 times!)

We were able to get a private tour of the house my step-dad grew up in, which is now a park in Hayward, and it was amazing to hear all the stories, and see the awesome wallpaper and details of the old house.  After the tour we took family pictures on the steps! This is one of the "Uncle" photos.

Monkey pants slept through Thanksgiving dinner...and almost every meal.  Maybe it was the time change? or the pure awesomeness of this trip just wore him out. 

and of course we cooked! and tasted...! By the way, i highly recommend chocolate whipping cream if you can find it.  Awesome stuff I hadn't seen before.

We got to visit the house I grew up in to cut the grass and rake the leaves. 

She tried to help us vacuum!

Lady Face fell asleep at Ikea, which was really helpful to get things done there, but it didn't last very long...

The best part was spending time with all of my family in one place.  Heaven!

We really didn't want to leave...on the drive home Monkey Pants had decided that we were driving to grandma's house...even though we were leaving. 

I can't even remember how much we did.  It was a lot. We were asleep before we hit the pillow just about every night.  It was awesome. 

Today i have one more bookshelf to put together before I can finish trimming and assembling my blocks and quilt top for the Drunkard's Path Quilt-Along that I am soooo behind on. I'm hoping to finish the top by the link up deadline of December 5th. 

I hope you all had a fabulous Thanksgiving, this is my favorite time of the year!

One down and vacation on the mind...

We are going to grandma's (my mom's) house on Friday! It's all the kids can talk about and it's all I can think about. It's been a busy year and it feels like we haven't had a chance to relax in a while.

I'm excited for grandparents to distract my children so I don't have to be "on" ALL day long (does that sound awful?). Also, the whole family will be there, which is particularly exciting for me as we haven't met the two newest editions to the family and most of the family hasn't met Lady Face.

We are driving from Idaho to California and might be bringing the dog. We will stop at the first In-N-Out we come to and every one after. I will eat an entire Chocolate Rum Cake from Prolific Oven in Palo Alto and delight in the familiar places I haven't seen since before Lady Face was born...not to mention friends, family, and Thanksgiving.

Maybe some shopping? Yes please.

But.....it's Tuesday. Before we leave at 4am (yeah right) Friday morning I have a long to do list. Baking, cleaning, packing, sewing and I'm about ready to just sit on the couch and let my kids watch Cars 2 over and over again and just fast forward to Friday.

On a totally different note, I finished quilting the blue Ohio Stars quilt and it's a great snuggler but not the greatest looker. I LOVE the binding. It's my favorite part.

I learned a lot making it. We will leave it at that. However it does get bonus points because Monkey pants likes it. He has a Linus type attachment to a blue blanket and is very "selective" about what blanket can keep him warm. When I finished this one he wanted to snuggle under it! WIN.

I'm also desperately behind on the drunkards path quilt along but have finally gotten some of my squares sewn and am hoping to get them all done and trimmed before we go as I'd love to finish it by the 28th to link it up with everyone else's.

Don't let them fool you, either. Sewing curves IS scary. But now, I can do it! And it's fun. I like it.