Thanksgiving Premonitions

We had thanksgiving dinner early this year. My cousin had her traditional Thanksgiving dinner at her house this year a little early since she and nearly everyone else would be out of town on Thanksgiving. So on November 13th, we had the whole thanksgiving day, turkey, mashed potatoes, stuffing, sweet potatoes, and of course, pumpkin pie. Everyone was there, the Malmrose family, Aunt Jeanne, Uncle Greg and Aunt Joyce, the Kirk Broberg family and Susan Broberg with her family. The only thing that was missing was the after dinner football game in the backyard! Afterwards, we felt that our Thanksgiving needs had been satisfied for the year, one dinner is enough for us. So we voted to have our very own Thanksgiving this year sans turkey!

Anniversary

Since I have been enjoying playing volleyball so much lately, Jeff thought it would be fun to go to a college volleyball game for our anniversary. It was a wonderful idea. We went down to Cal Lutheran University (about a half hour away) to watch the Division 3 tournament. It just so happened that the home team was playing. We were able to cheer them on to a victory. We topped off the evening with a dinner of Mongolian Barbeque. It was like a buffet, we selected the frozen meat, vegetables, noodles and sauce, then they fried it on a huge skillet while we waited. It was a lot of fun, and very tasty. It was a great date.

Halloween

Our Halloween theme this year was Tangled. Allie was Rapunzel, Maddie was Mother Gothel, Gabe was Flynn Rider and Jayd was the frying pan. We had a great time at our ward party on Friday, then trick or treating with some friends on Monday night. The kids wanted Toby to be Pascal, but I didn't think they would appreciate that at the church and I was worried about him going trick or treating. So we found a stuffed substitute.

AWE.....He's so cute!

My newest nephew, Austin Williams Eichelberger, or AWE, was finally born on October 21, just missing my birthday by days. Despite his extra 11 days in utero, he was unable to best his older brother, Collin, as the biggest baby in the family, he was a measly 9 lbs 1 oz, a full 7 oz smaller than Collin. But size certainly does not diminish cuteness! We were so grateful that Krissy and Austin were able to come up and visit us on Thursday and to retrieve Collin. Collin had come to stay with us for a few days while Krissy and Austin got to know each other on the outside. We held the tiny baby, and took pictures. I had fun taking pictures of Allie and Austin's feet. They were just so tiny! Allie did a great job of helping with Collin. They really bonded while he was here. She was like his little mother.

Going to Grandma's House

As a child, going to Grandma's house was always fun. She lived in LA, about 6 hours away from where I grew up. It meant a long drive, sleeping in the office, playing with the wooden games, and always crowding around the pump organ to gently play the little finger songs that we were allowed to play. There were many memories at Grandma's house. It was always there, but it never changed.
No longer. Instead of going to Grandma's house, a small piece of Grandma's house came to me. After a few years in a nursing home, Grandma has come to realize that she should sell the house. My dad (along with his siblings) spent 2 weeks going through her possessions and dividing everything among children and grandchildren. I didn't think there was any bit of a possibility, but the old pump organ came to live with me, along with a wooden game, a painting done by her and a few other trinkets. It looks lovely in my front room. My favorite part is when I open the organ, I get a pleasant whiff of "Grandma's house."

Giants, tall trees or river crossers?

Jeff's sister Jill, has been up in Sacramento doing training for her upcoming tour in Iraq. Near the end, she had some down time, but couldn't leave for more than 24 hours at a time. That was a little short to come down and visit us, so we arranged to meet her halfway. Only Jeff, Allie and Gabe were able to go, but they had a great time. They decided to camp in Visalia to break up the 6 hour drive there and backinto two days. After they found a campsite, they discovered that Sequoia National Park was only 20 minutes away. So off they went to walk with the Giants. They loved being in the park, among the tall trees, and even a sprinkling of snow on the ground!
The next day, Jeff, Allie and Gabe played on the shore of the river. Jeff was just relaxing and soon discovered that Allie and Gabe had crossed the river! Getting there was not a problem, they just hopped from rock to rock. Getting back an hour later was a much bigger problem. They had opened the gates from the dam above, and now all the rocks were under water! It was a bit of a cold operation, but with Jeff's help, they made it back safely.

Generally speaking, it's General Conference

We went for a whirlwind trip up to Utah to attend General Conference. We left Friday at about lunch time, so the kids missed a little bit of school. We arrived at my Aunt Vicki's in Provo not too much longer than we estimated despite needing to change a tire in the middle of Utah. We spent the day visiting family, and the BYU campus before retiring to Tooele for the evening.
Sunday we were up to watch conference on TV and eat conference cake of course! We left Tooele around 11:30 to attend the 2:00 session of conference. We loved stopping by the temple on temple square. It was crowded! It was refreshing to see so many people crowded around the temple. Inside the conference center, we sat in the balcony seating. The kids loved being there, I think their favorite part was watching the cameras move up and down and trying to guess which camera was broadcasting to the screen. It was wonderful to be in the presence of the apostles and prophets, even though they looked like little ants from where we were sitting. I really enjoyed listening to the messages that they gave and the sweet spirit that prevailed throughout the conference center. It was really special to be there with my family.
After conference ended, we immediately left for home and arrived home around 1:30 am. Life went back to normal from there, we were off to seminary at 6:30 that morning. It was quite the whirlwind trip, but I am so very grateful that we had the opportunity to go and enjoy this experience.