Thanksgiving Day!

We had such a nice Thanksgiving Day.

Camille and Sarah made some chalk drawings.

We had beautiful, sunny weather.

As a snack earlier in the day we had veggies and fruit.

Sarah was good at getting them ready!

Then we went Geocaching**-- a new experience for us and it was lots of fun!

It got us outside, walking around and a mystery is always fun to solve.

Sarah, Camille and I were in charge of setting the table.

It was a super delicious meal!

There was a turkey cooked by Heidi and a ham cooked by Charles with many tasty side dishes.

Afterwards the girls did some exercising...

...and Grandpa tried out the yoga ball!

Playing some games: Elizabeth and Grandpa are trying to 

Think 'N Sync.

And finally it was time for pie with a choice of four different kinds, all homemade!

We are thankful to have been able to celebrate Thanksgiving 

with the McClellans!

**"Geocaching is an outdoor recreational activity, in which participants use a mobile device and other navigational techniques to hide and seek containers, called "geocaches", at specific locations marked by coordinates all over the world.

A typical cache is a small waterproof container containing a logbook and sometimes a pen or pencil. The geocacher signs the log with their established code name and dates it, in order to prove that they found the cache. After signing the log, the cache must be placed back exactly where the person found it.

The Day Before Thanksgiving!

We got to spend Thanksgiving with the McClellan family.

On the day before Thanksgiving we volunteered at the local food bank.

We were in charge of a pallet of pudding!

Courtney worked over on the assembly line putting together bags of food for school children to take home for the weekend.

Afterwards since it was close to the food bank we stopped at:

Everyone had fun choosing some candy and nuts.

My four beautiful granddaugters!

Later, Sarah and I made some rolls.

And several of us colored these turkeys for the table.

Then we played some games.

Camille like playing with Grandpa and all of her stuffed friends because she got more turns!  

Puzzles in progress as well.

We learned a new game called Qwingo!

Just before dark Grandpa took Sarah and Camille to the park.

I think we are ready for Turkey Day thanks to

Heidi doing most of the work while we had all the fun!

We Love When They Come!

We love when the Perrys come over!

Joshua played the flute for us:

And Hannah played some Christmas songs on the piano:

David and Jacob had fun working on a puzzle:

Lily liked building a tower:

Jacob and Lily needed a picture of their grandparents for their

"Thankful Placemats" for school:

Grandpa joins in on the puzzle:

Come over anytime!

Second Week!

We started our second rotation/week at the temple!

This is Dan opening up at 5:00 a.m.  There are bright lights around the door but it was pitch black and we could see stars.

Here's what we saw as we were leaving the temple around 2:30 p.m.

We made it on our first day on the early rotation...

but here is what my phone alarms looked like that day:

I was so tired when we got home I had to take a rest but set an alarm so I wouldn't sleep too long!

 I snapped this photo as we were getting out of the car to speak at our second stake conference of the weekend.

This is quite an adventure!

Old and New at Sea Ranch!

We enjoyed our trip to Sea Ranch so much!

There were the usual things...

...bluff trails:

Dan trying to get pictures of the waves crashing against the rocks:

Success!

Going down and walking in the sand

Hedgerows:

Interesting houses, birds and meadows...

But there were some new things too.

We added a little Halloween fun:

We walked to the northern edge of Sea Ranch to a place called Whale Watch Point and I took a picture of the public beach and the town of Gualala.

We needed to study some temple items.

I spent a lot of time on the computer at this table.

And one of the best things was that we had clear nights and no city lights.

This isn't a photograph we took but this is close to what we saw except it was much more expansive.  We could see stars including the Milk Way way overhead and clear to the horizon of the ocean.

It was one of the most amazing and awe-inspiring sights I have ever seen!