Thanksgiving

We arrived by mid-afternoon and enjoyed our now-traditional pre-Thanksgiving pizza night with the Carballos. This year we did the pizza night at Mother's Villa.

Thursday we zipped over to the Carballos' home for the Thanksgiving Feast. Wendy had created a buffet table and we started with appetizers while waiting for Jenny, David, and Lily to arrive.

Lily was intrigued with the cats. Bastet wasn't so sure.

Anne assembles the dressing. We did our cooking at Wendy's rather than try to cook ahead and reheat.

Meanwhile, Alan enjoyed croissants with eggs and cheese that he cooked at home.

The Feast!

We outdid ourselves with desserts.

Glen loves Wendy's coconut custard.

Jenny made sure to sample a bit of everything, in honor of her grandfather.

Lily found the swiffer and did a few laps around the house with it.

A collaborative design session: the end result was a pair of Channel Island Fox earrings for Lisa for Christmas.

Friday we were back at the Carballos to celebrate Christmas and eat some yummy leftovers.

Wendy was our Christmas Elf.

Bastet must have felt a bit safer with Lily briefly contained in the playpen.

Sweets for everyone from Jenny & David, including a candy Christmas Pizza.

Lily opens her very first Christmas gift. It's from GreatGrandmother.

Lily watches Grandpa open his gift from GreatGrandmother.

Mother always likes Carla Kelly's books.

And Lily likes "Never Touch a Polar Bear"

Glen looks dashing in his handspun wool cap, made with wool from 'Naomi', a sheep Wendy has gotten other wool from, too.

Lily models Glen's new hat.

And then she shows off her own pink hat.

Lily checks out Grandma's new tatted poppy necklace.

The weather was nice enough to go outside and clean the cheerios from Lily's carseat.

Plenty of leftovers for another meal or two.

Lily and her entourage take a stroll around the cul-de-sac.

Puzzle time. Mother shared one of her new 300-piece puzzles.

Others played Carcassonne at the other end of the table.

Having finished one puzzle, we got out another. Lily took the opportunity to investigate GreatGrandmother's bag behind her back.

Ta-Da!

Lily likes to carry something around; this time she found a can of soda.

Apples-to-apples -- Vanessa won.

Puzzle number 3 for the day.

Is this a record for us?

Helios bravely put in an appearance.

And Pluto even let Anne hold him.

Anne got some very early birthday gifts from Mother before we got on the road home just a bit after 10am Saturday. We had dry roads all the way home, beating the predicted snow, and traffic.