Happy March - Easter prep - pinewood derby - San Diego trip

Good Morning! We have a had a fun couple of weeks. Tom and I made some Easter cards. We are hoping to send them out today. I did the cutting but he did the gluing and choosing of colors.

We made a quick pinewood derby car with Luke last week. He started it with Pa when he was in town. He took fourth place in a couple of the races but I think he came in dead last overall despite looking up all the tricks on the internet and the Hot video Tip from Uncle John. We told him he is carrying on the Markos tradition. But it was fun anyway.

Thomas is doing joy school with a few of his friends once a week. He LOVES it! We rotate who's house it's at each week. We do a letter each week and have made it all the way to the letter Z. Sadly we missed this day because he had a cold but we did our own activities at  home instead.

He also has been loving Cucumbers lately. Balsamic Vinaigrette is his dip of choice. Sometimes he likes ranch though (which he calls Branch)

Last weekend Pa flew out to take care of the kids for us so I could join Doug at his conference in San Diego for a long weekend. We were so grateful for him willing to do this for us. It is not easy running all the kids to there activities and such. Here are some photos of our trip. We toured a retired aircraft carrier. It was amazing.

We met up with old friend Ab and Danelle saw their cute family.

We hiked around Torrey Pines and Cabrillo National Monument

We went to see the seals in La Jolla.

The temple was closed for cleaning while we were there but we stopped by.

We also took a lot of pictures of really nice cars at Jack and Luke's request.

Then we traveled up to LA and Doug humored me by stopping by my childhood house in Mission Hills.

We drove north to Liz's house to hang out with her family for a little while.

And had some IN n OUT

Then stopped at the Getty Center to see the beautiful gardens and art work.

All in all it was so fun and relaxing. Especially after the whirlwind of a week that lead up to it. I was a real treat to have no responsibilities. Thank you Doug and Pa for making it happen.

November

I've had these pictures loaded for months. They are the perfect summary of our November 2017. I will continue to try and catch up. Tom and I had lunch with Luke at school and Tom is showing us that he learned to wink. 

The week before Thanksgiving I sold my bags in the annual craft fair. Its always a fun day for me. Doug also bought us a new car (honda minivan) that day while I was at the show.

Mer had a YW event where she was recognized for completing her personal progress.

The next week we drove up to Georgia to for Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving day we had an Apple taste test. Who knew there were so many different tasting apples. My favorite was the Envy

Thomas said "YaYa makes good puppets" when he saw this picture.

the next day we traveled up to Helen GA to look around. 

He hiked to a water fall

And hiked up to a place called that Brasstown Bald. Which you can look out over a few different states.

OF course Pa made his famous puppy dog pancakes.

We had a great November.