Thanks for the Giving

Thanksgiving is a fantastic invention. The best food you could possibly imagine, left overs for the next week, and family galore! Not to mention that one of my best friends, Miss Anisa Andrus came down to visit!! The world is brighter when she's around that's for sure. This year, we decided to live on the wild side and travel to California for Thanksgiving!!!! We went to visit our fabulous cousins and spend Thanksgiving with them. I don't think I could have asked for a better week to be grateful for. We went to the Ronald Reagan Library/Museum, ate until we fell asleep, went on a longboarding adventure, ate Del Taco enough that I am no longer excited for Taco Tuesdays, for now went bowling, made an In-N-Out run, hit up Target and Kohls on Black Friday and biked to the beach! The Ronald Reagan museum was fantastic, and I even bought a book about that great man! I decided that I'd like to collect a book on every president. I think I should know a little more about the men that have served our country. Plus, by reading their books, it gives me a bit of a history lesson too. Booya! Biking to the beach wasn't as "exciting" as my last time (adding yet another scar to my right knee), but definitely just as great. Riley asked me to promise that I would ride right next to her the whole entire time. Of course I said yes to those beautiful blue eyes! While riding at her liesurely pace she recited the 13 articles of faith that she had recently memorized. Man that girl makes me smile. We got to the fork in the road where we were suppose to meet up with the other half of the group, and my uncle suggested I go up to meet with the other group while he took Riley to the end. I looked at Riley, and asked if I could take Riley down and he go meet them since he was much more familiar with the trail. He agreed and Riley and I were off. A few minutes later Riley looked at me with a smile and said, "You promised me you would stay with me, and you kept your promise!" Maybe this is what it's like when you're a mom, but I got a warm fuzzy feeling inside and an urge to squeeze that darling girl into a big hug! Kids are precious...especially this little lady.

On our way back we got caught in a "crazy snow storm!" which consisted of a friendly trickle of little flakes.

Side note: Luckily it wasn't like the one that we barely missed on our way out to California. You know the one that was "record breaking", causing people to stay indoors and rade the grocery store for the end of the world supplies? 1 inch of snow.... Ah Utah.

I loved every second of the snow, until people forgot how to drive and decided to crash into each other. Thus, our drive took us about 4 hours longer than it was intended to take. Bleh. Despite the obnoxious car ride, California was a blast. Thanksgiving was fantastic and I have my wonderful family to thank for that.