Happy Thanksgiving

Between the cleaning, pie making, and table setting, wanted to take a break and wish everyone a very Happy Thanksgiving!!!! May your day be peaceful, stress free, and filled with much joy that this season brings.

Don't forget to take some time out of your busy schedule and have a little fun today!!!

Random Shots

Do you ever grab the camera when you see something cute going on but don't have enough pictures to create a post in itself? I do that all the time and end up with a bunch of pictures that never make it to Gracie's blog. I decided to take some of those recent shots and put them into this post. I still have lots of other pictures that will probably stay in the computer forever, unless I decide to stop procrastinating and start scrapbooking again but that probably won't happen anytime soon. Then again, it's almost time for New Year resolutions so maybe I will start making that list........ I'll get right on it, tomorrow!

Last week, Gracie was wearing shoes that were a little too tight. I asked her if they were tight and she said yes so I told her we would get different shoes. I went to finish drying my hair and when I came out of the bathroom, found Gracie with her kitty boots on. She went into her room, and changed her shoes herself without my helping. It was so cute and she had her shoes on the correct feet too!

Showing some tude in her Mickey hat as Gracie likes to call it

A couple days ago, Gracie decided to climb on Wrigley, the most patient dog in the world. I was surprised that he allowed Gracie to sit on him but he's been so gentle and good with Gracie since we brought her home. He's the best dog and we love him very much.

Taking a mommy stroll with her baby and scarecrow. She loves to put her purse on the stroller, just like mommy does.

I thought this was a cute photo

I hardly ever have Gracie's hair down as her head still gets super sweaty and her hair is still growing out so it's at the point where it hangs in her eyes but she still looks cute with it down. :)

No more pictures please!

Cataracts and Causes

No, this post isn't about the causes of cataracts, it's actually about two separate things. The cataract part comes in because my dad had cataract surgery done on Thursday. Being the comedian that he is, I decided to take pictures with my camera phone and post them to my blog. I love my dad to death and he has a great sense of humor. I felt sorry for our poor nurse Daisy as he kept razzing her. Seriously, my dad has been through a lot in his short life of 75 years. When he was 18, he had throat cancer. That was quite a while ago and the treatments weren't what they are today. The cancer came back again when I was a baby but being the strong willed person that my dad is, he beat it the second time around too. He's also had hernia surgeries and other things.

For all he's been through, my dad is pretty healthy today and am so glad that he lives close so Gracie can see granpda or papa as she has been calling him often.

On to the other part of my title, causes. As the holidays approach and we all get busy and the economy isn't in the greatest shape, so money is tight, we tend to forget about those that are less fortunate than us or just need a boost. Stacey from my mom's board, posted two things that are minimal in cost and takes very little time.

The first one, only costs a stamp and you can brighten up a soldier's day and let them know how thankful you are for their service to our county. When you are making out your Christmas cards, send one to the following address:

A Recovering American Soldier
c/o Walter Reed Army Medical Center
6900 Georgia Avenue, NW
Washington,D.C. 20307-5001


It only takes a minute of your time so add the above address to your card list.

The other cause can be found at the following link:

www.macysbelieve.com


For every stamped letter to Santa received, Macy's will donate $1 to the Make a Wish Foundation up to $1000,000

See it doesn't cost a thing, only a little bit of your time and a stamp or two. So pass that holiday spirit around and get writing.

Dad before his surgery. No he didn't convert, they put a dot over the eye that they are going to do surgery on.

Dad the jokester

Arrr said the pirate. When we took my dad to the doctor the next day, Gracie was afraid of grandpa's patch and kept taking peeks at him.

Fire and Sun

While we were at the beach, there were a lot of fires that were going on in the mountain areas. We get windy conditions called The Santa Anas, which blew the smoke all the way down towards the ocean. The sky looked ominous, almost as though a terrible rain storm was to come, but it was just smoke. In the top picture, is our campground. You
can see how the smoke is making it's way to
the ocean.



Here is a picture of the HB Pier and the horrible conditions over the water. A little bit of blue sky is still showing.




In this picture, you can see that no blue sky is left.




The second night camping, Jerry took these beautiful pictures of the sun setting behind Catalina Island. We have some gorgeous sunsets here in SoCal.

Beach Camping

This past weekend, we took our trailer down to the beach for a fun family camping outing. Try saying that fast 3 times! The weather was very warm, in the 80s and on Saturday, the Santa Ana winds were blowing which caused a lot of destruction and fires in the nearby hills. A lot of people ended up losing houses and the fires are still raging on. The air quality was pretty bad too on Saturday and the wind blew the smoke down to the beach. Later, I will post some pictures that we took of the sky and smoke. We also ended up leaving one day early as the electricity went out, due to a transformer blowing.

Since we were steps from the ocean and the weather was warm, we took Gracie down to the water where she had fun running around on the sand and building a castle, well sort of building a castle with daddy. She kept knocking it down, everytime Jerry would start to build one! I did get to relax a bit and read some of my book http://www.randomhouse.com/rhpg/lovingfrank/. Some of my friends and I created a bookclub and this is our first book. It's an excellent book and hard to put down.



Also, when we were taking a walk along the beach, there were tons and tons of ladybugs in the sand by the water. I got all excited since ladybugs are a good sign and are important to the Chinese adoption community. I went online to find out what was up with the ladybugs and found this quote "Then they fly up into an air column and if it happens to be an offshore breeze, say a Santa Ana condition, they eventually run out of ground. It’s all about timing,” . Which basically means, the Santa Ana winds that were starting, whipped the the ladybugs onto the shore. :)

That's my girl, two remotes are better than one!

I told you Gracie's favorite place is the bathtub

Lounging around

Gracie had fun covering my feet

Doing the happy dance

This is a picture of the loads of seashells that were at the beach. I tried to capture just the shells and sand as I wanted the never ending effect.

Flying pigtails

I have no idea how I captured this picture but check out Gracies feet, both are off the ground. I told her to jump whenever the water came up and I must have caught her just at the right time.

Part of the HB Pier and a surfer catching a wave

Gracie and mommy waving at the helicopter

Beautiful smile, beautiful girl

Yummy, Gracie had her first taste of S'mores

Watching the campfire intently

Kicking back watching Barney

Here's a picture of a ladybug on the sand. I took out the color in the background sand and left the ladybug red.

Costumes in November

Last weekend, Gracie and I went to our mom's group. Gracie got to wear her Halloween costume again which was great, considering it was November. It was really fun and one of the moms, showed the kids how to do 3 different crafts. Okay, it was more like the moms were doing the crafts but it was still fun and Gracie had a blast. We also donated our leftover candy to a local charity which was even better for me as I didn't have to eat it all myself.

Tonight, we are taking our trailer to the local beach to go "camping". I love taking our trailer out and we've hardly been doing so since gas prices skyrocketed but now that the prices are lower, cough cough (I remember when gas was $.99) we decided it was time to do more camping. I'm going to take the camera so there should be lots of pictures to post when I get back. Have a good weekend everyone.

Too cute for words

It's J. the red nosed reindeer

Wishful thinking

Craft time

M. is the mom standing up who did the crafts. Her son R. is from China also.

Let's Have a Potty

For the past month, Gracie has been showing some signs of potty awareness as I will politely put it. Whenever she does the do which rhymes with shoe, she will tell whoever is in the room to go. Even if you peek around the corner and she spots you, she says "no, go" and points with her finger. We thought it was cute and funny and hey, I can understand that the kid needs privacy so I figured it was time that I bought her a little potty.

I explained to Gracie, the best that you can to a newly turned two year old that when she had to go, let mommy know. I figured she probably wouldn't get it until she was a little older as she isn't really showing any interest but while she sat on my lap last Saturday night, she quickly jumped down and ran out of the room. Okay, so I wasn't sure what it was about but figured she had a toy she was dying to play with. All of a sudden, I hear her little feet running back into the room, along with a clunk, clunk, clunk. I turned around and Gracie was carrying her potty that she had retrieved from the bathroom and said to me, pee, pee.

I was so stunned and trying to stifle my laughter because here was my daughter, with a lollypop in her mouth carrying this potty. I quickly whipped off her jeans which was not an easy feat and stripped her of her diaper, only to find that she had just gone. I sat Gracie on the potty anyway and clapped and hooted and hollered for her that you would have thought that I had just won a million dollars.

Gracie looked so cute that I ended up taking some pictures of her, sucker and all! Now if I could only get Jerry trained. :) J/K

Tahoe in the Fall

** For some reason, I 've been having a lot of trouble with this post. My pictures weren't showing up so I had to delete the origial and then re-do the post. Blogger also wasn't cooperating which was driving me crazy. :)



Last weekend, we went to Lake Tahoe for a mini vacation. Jerry had a seminar nearby so Gracie, grandma, and I met up with him and drove to Lake Tahoe. Tahoe is one of our favorite places and if you are ever in Northern CA, you really need to see it. It's hard to describe and the pictures don't do it justice as Tahoe is simply breathtaking and gorgeous. If we could, Jerry and I would move there.



When we went this last time, the leaves were changing colors and were nestled in among the pine trees. It was Gracie's first visit to Tahoe and I had never been in the fall so that made it more special. Jerry and I did our traditional drive around the lake which takes a couple of hours but we stopped at several places and got some neat pictures. There is one point when driving where you can see Fallen Leaf Lake on one side and Lake Tahoe on the other. The road is very narrow and scary at that particular spot but we had to stop and Jerry took some amazing pictures. All too quickly, our 4 days there ended and it was back to reality and hot 80 degree weather. We are hoping to visit in the spring and stay at this really cute resort that we discovered while looking for fall leaves.

PS~ Gracie is an awesome traveler and was great on the plane. On the way there and back, when we were boarding, Gracie had to wave to EVERY single person that had already boarded and said hi to them. It was sweet but kind of embarrassing. Most people were really nice though and said hi back!

Beautiful fall trees, nestled amongst the pines

Fallen Leaf Lake which is right next to Lake Tahoe with a mountain range between the two

Amma (Grandma) and Gracie

Can you see the house?

A very happy girl

Lions and tigers and bears, oh my!

Daddy and Gracie at Sorensens' Ranch

Gracie can spot a swing a mile away

Hey, you stole my fishing pole

Lake Tahoe is at it's lowest natural level right now. That is why there is so much shoreline and rocks showing in this picture.

Gracie taking a rest on the stairs as there were tons to climb

Lake Tahoe (Emerald Bay) is up above and below is the picture of Fallen Leaf Lake. Both these shots were taken from the point in the road going around Tahoe, where you can see both lakes. It's a gorgeous view but the road is scary at that point.

Gracie's favorite spot is the bathtub

Wake up Daddy!!!