Some times a hidden gem is found, other times …

On Sunday, the Santa Barbara Zoo held its annual Snow Leopard festival by bringing in snow and sleds for the kids.  We decided to have a family adventure and experience the snow.  We didn’t tell the kids what we were doing until we pulled into the zoo parking lot.  They were very excited, and we were shocked to see the line to get into the zoo snaking through the parking lot and onto the public sidewalk.

We dropped the kids to wait in line, I ran to the front to buy sledding bracelets and Toby parked the van.  We all came together to walk into the zoo once the line started moving.  Max, Lucy and I ran to the top of the hill at the zoo, ready for the snow.  

We saw a tiny patch of shaved ice that held enough of a slope for a 2 second ride in a plastic toboggan.  There were enormous amounts of people trying to throw ice-balls at one another.  There were so many people standing on the snow that volunteers had to use lawn rakes to ‘fluff’ up the ice so that it could be scooped up by the 3 year olds.

After his first run, Max decided he would rather play on his Nintendo DS.  Lucy found a neighbor girl to play with, but only lasted a few minutes herself.  Toby was mad because the concession stand closest to the ice patch would not open for another hour and when it did open, it did not serve hot coco.  I was amazed at the number of people who were waiting in lines scores deep for the 2 second ride.

So we decided that the morning could be rescue with a trip to Toby’s favorite bakery to get hot coco and éclairs.  We arrived at ‘Xanadu –French Bakery’ in Montecito to find the building was surrounded with caution tape and posted danger signs on the plywood over the doors.

We ended up having Vons donuts.  🙁

I have been forgetting to refill my water softener with salt for the past two days, so tonight I bought some salt and had Max hold a flashlight for me while I filled the softener.

Walking back to the back door along the side of the house, Max was swinging the flashlight around and the beam passed over the top of the fence.  Staring down at him was an opossum sitting on the top of the fence.  Max squealed and ran into the house faster than I have ever seen him move.  Certainly faster than when I tell him to take out the trash!  Well, the flashlight went with Max, leaving me in the dark.  I scooted past and joined Max in trying to take a picture through the window.  It was like trying to photograph Bigfoot!  Here is a sample what we ended up with.

Oops, flash is on.

Too much zoom

Bad light placement

Right on.

We have a lot to be thankful for this year.  To celebrate, we had 15 adults (14+) and 6 children.  Since I was a kid, our family  has traditionally celebrated Thanksgiving with the Neinhuis family (Poppa and Burt are cousins).  I believe that the families have been together on Thanksgiving for 25+ years.

We had 10 Neinhuis members (Burt, Sue, Kelly, Lucas, Tim, Jodie, Brooke, Jake, Joe, Caleb, Melissa) and 11 Theule members (Poppa, YaYa, Bub, Toby, Max, Lucy, Roly, Jeff, Jan, Emily, Nathan Bernards) on Turkey day, and Burt/Sue, Jeff/Jan, Joe/Melissa came back for breakfast the next morning.  We capped off the weekend with a pot of chocolate fondue that Jan brought over.

We got to celebrate Toby’s 38th birthday and Roly’s 4 month birthday at the Cheesecake Factory in Woodland Hills last Saturday.  At the restaurant, there was a nutrition guide on the table.  After reading that my lunch portion of Fettucine Alfredo had nearly 1600 calories, I decided that 3 bites was enough and took the remainder home for a second meal.  Lest anyone think that I left the restaurant hungry, I was quite full from splitting a 1000 calorie salad with Toby as an appetizer.

Wow, November had a lot of people visiting the Carpinteria Theules, even without including Thanksgiving (look for a separate post).

The month started off with Dad getting to experience a weekend of just children while Mom went to Oregon to visit Buddy and Cena, et. al.  She left Max, Lucy and Roly with Dad from Friday to Sunday night.  Toby’s mom was scheduled to come down for 2 weeks after the Oregon visit.

Camille and Toby came home to Carpinteria on Sunday night (much to Dad’s relief).  And they brought glad tidings of great joy.  Toby announced that the next day, her cousin Sunny Maldonado and brood (husband Jose, children Alex, Bella, Gigi and Luis) were arriving at the Santa Barbara airport to spend a week with us.  We had plenty of meals with the extended family, including the Wassons and Nawais.  Even Aaron’s sister and nieces were in town and visited.

The day after the Maldonados flew back to one of the Carolinas, our good friends the D’Elias made their annual pilgrimage to Carpinteria.  They stayed for the weekend and a good time was had by al.  The weather for our beach day was perfect.

Lucy and Camille did some great bonding activities like hair styling and sewing.  Lucy is excited to spend more time with Gran to develop her sewing skills.

We are glad and thankful to have to have so much space at our house to have our wonderful friends and family stay over and visit.