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I can’t believe it’s been 2 weeks since Thanksgiving already!  Christmas is fast approaching, so I figured I had better get in this post before it’s just too late.

My parents came out this year to spend Thanksgiving week with us and to attend Grandparent’s Day at the kids’ school.   The kids all get such a big kick out of having a campus full of Grandparent’s and letting them see what it’s like being in school today.  They even got to eat school lunch together (although, for this occasion the school brings in pizza).  🙂

Usually when my Mom and Dad come out, we plan on doing some cool hikes and other walking around activities.  Unfortunately, my Dad injured his knee just before the visit, so we ended up taking it easy on him.  Derek definitely sympathized with him.  🙁   We did manage to get up to San Francisco and do a little walking around to check out the newly reopened California Academy of Sciences.   Talk about nuts!   The line was ridiculously long!  …but we finally managed to get in.  Here we are checking out the living roof.

The highlight of the visit had to be the enclosed tropical rain forest  exhibit with free flying butterflies and birds and all kinds of cool reptiles to check out.  You can play a little “I spy a frog” in the next few photos. 🙂

…and we just could not figure out what these butterflies were up to.  😉

There were also these amazingly beautiful striking blue butterflies in the exhibit (these were Theresa’s and my favorite) and these cool zebra stripped ones. Even though the number of people there was a bit overwhelming, we did all have a great time.   Afterward, we met up with my Aunt Sue who lives in San Francisco and had some great Thai food in the city…. but what’s Thanksgiving without turkey and of course lots of pie ?!!!  Theresa and James were happy to pose with both!

Cherry pie was Theresa’s request and then I made fresh pumpkin pie with yummy local Sugar Pie pumpkins we bought.

We hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving with family and friends!  It’s definitely during this time of year where we wish that the family wasn’t so spread out all across the world.  We miss you all and hope to see you soon!