American Thanksgiving in CALIFORNIA!!!!

Man I am so behind! Anyway, we got to go to California for American Thanksgiving!!! I have missed it so! Haven't been back since I was pregnant with Zach in 2006 so that was 8 years?! I love Thanksgiving, and it just so happened that ALL of my family was there too. Another reunion. 

After the kids went to bed I thought I'd check Zach's carry-on just in case he may have been bringing any non-essentials...

...Nope! All looks pretty necessary to me for a trip to California! HA!! I love this kid. (How DID he get all of that in his tiny backpack?!)

Hoarfrost is beautiful...but I will leave this ANY DAY!

2 month old Everett...HERE WE COME MER MER!!!!

Our kids were troopers. We had a small layover in Seattle that turned into a LONG layover in Seattle...HOURS to kill. No fun. But we got vouchers for dinner (we went to McDonald's?! I will never again let me kids determine where we eat when we have free vouchers! Especially after I spotted an Anthony's!!) Anyway, by the time we got there we were all exhausted!

These girls were super excited to get to California! They are great travelers.

Everett got his bath in the sink! A tradition in the Crippen home. :) He sure needed it too. This guy is so so spitty and cranky...from 3 weeks on he was just hard to settle. We've never had a baby like that! Luckily I know now that it just lasted another month and then we had the happiest blob of baby on the block!

Zip line at Mer Mer's house! The kids love it.

Addie and Emery. These kids are SO lucky to have SO many cousins! Now if only they didn't live SO far away! Oh well, we will take what we can get.

Friday night we had an Adult only dinner. It was splendid. We love these semi quiet times. But then it's the adults that get loud! FUN TIMES!

Are you kidding me?! Yeah, just a little better than hoarfrost...i need to frame this in my home.

Roaring bonfire on the beach after a fun-filled sun-filled day! Yes its the end of November there too! I'm telling you. That's the way life should be!

Sunday Sister picture.

And a visit from my bestie and her beau. :) We've known each other for 30 years now?!

After Travon said he hadn't ever held a baby and was scared to I kinda threw Everett into his arms. He's 30 and never held a baby?! He was afraid he is going to break them or something. Tra is a BIG TALL man, so I can see how tiny a baby must seem to him, but Everett is durable enough to handle anything. ;) Good job Tra!

When the cousins get together they love to do the girls hair. Here's Kate modeling her new do.

And even Zach Attack!

I have a feeling this one is TOTALLY going to come back to haunt you later on! Wedding slide show material.

We took the kids to Lego Land! It would have been awesome had it not been super crowded and had we brought an extra adult and Everett not have had a poop explosion all over me. Didn't think to bring an extra shirt for me!? I was pretty angry about the whole situation then, what a waste of money it felt like for long lines, expensive food, ungrateful/whiney children, fear of losing a child, and "mustard" stripes all over my nice new grey shirt, but in the end Dad showed up and the day was nice. Yay Dad!

Addie was pretty nervous even about that first picture. NO WAY was she staying for a hug! What kind of huge Lego lady creep is that?! Ha ha!

Love this picture of my snugly baby boy. Even though he did poop on me.

Dad came so I got to go on rides and he took pictures! 

Great one of Papa and Addie. So glad he came!!

How can you not smile at this. Love this girl.

Last ride of the night we snuck on before the park closed.

Love his creativity. Ha ha!

Fierce.

Now I call that a successful day at Lego Land! These guys get run to the ground in California! Just too much fun! Man my neck is hurting just looking at Kate.

Really blurry, but I had to show Addie too. NECK ACHE! Poor babes.

If he was aware this was happening, this would not be happening. Ha ha! I had to capture it to prove it did happen. 

On half-price Tuesday Justin, Zach, and Papa got up super early and went ocean fishing! Zach's tummy didn't love the windy roads on the mountains and he puked any breakfast he had eaten. Poor guy. Doesn't look to phased by it though. Fishing was the cure.

Zach mostly had fun playing with the live bait.

Zach's borrowed hat was proudly picked just for him by his cousin Michael. :) Just honoring the true heritage. He was born in Utah!

They caught 9 or 10 fish...mackerel, sea bass, and a blue perch. They think Zach caught a seal...or a fish a seal was about to eat because he got a humongous bite and then the line snapped. Darn! Those pelicans in the background were smart pelicans! They hung around and waited for the smaller fish to be thrown back. Once Justin caught a mackerel and the bird just waited and waited and Justin threw it right into his mouth! He got to feed a pelican. :)

That same morning I slept in and took pictures with this cutest cuddle buddy. Almost 3 months old here.

Seriously the softest baby on the block. 

3 different families represented here eating pomegranates probably off their tree in the backyard. Envy.

And Brenna Boo loves babies! I LOVE that lemon tree behind her. You kidding me?! 

And it wouldn't be a trip to California without a Pam's Donuts run!!!

Giving Addie a trim! Goodbye scraggly ends! Every time I cut my kids hair I think, "Why didn't I do that sooner?!"

Thanksgiving Eve at the beach! The best place to be at the end of November.

Mer Mer and Kate. I'm convinced Kate got her spunk and her love of all-things-water from Mer Mer! Too cute of a picture.

The UBB and her UBGB

(Ultimate Beach Babe- the term my dad coined for my mom the first time he saw her walk on his ferry! They now have 31 Ulitmate Beach Grand Babies!)

Best Uncle award!

Me teaching the kids all about tunnel digging. Build a mountain then dig tunnels from all sides until your hands meet your friends. Used to do it all the time!

Jess and her Turkey Art. 

Jessica's sand sculpture of a turkey...

vs. my sand sculpture of a turkey. ha ha!

Turkey Sand-which. Yummo.

Pretty spectacular if I do say so myself!

Addie LOVED the sand. 

She didn't LOVE her cousin ganging up on her. Perfect shot though Katie! HA HA! "I'll just go see what she does if I unsuspectingly drop this on her head."

Yeah, No one really liked it. Oh Cannon Ball. :)

HEAVEN. BLISS. PEACE.

Yeah, don't eat it.

Everett enjoying da beach.

Cutie patootie.

Definitely a beach baby.

Pelicans always and forever will remind me of my mom. She loves them. And my Dad...and his recitation of the poem "Oh the Mighty Pelican. It's beak can hold more than its belican. I don't know how the helican. The Mighty Pelican." Thank you.

Do we look like sisters? I love and miss these girls everyday (And you too Angie! Why did you leave us?!)

LOVE LOVE LOVE

Seriously they could have done this all day! And judging by the size of their drip castles it appears they did!

Had to get some pics of  Fuzz head and that chubby squishy soft belly at the beach.

Living it up. This is the life.

This was the beach we went to for the first few days of our honeymoon! Almost 10 years ago?!?

The one drawback to California that Justin can't stand!! Traffic! It did take forever to get home...but it was Thanksgiving Eve! Although it is probably always that bad.

Thanksgiving morn! Mom wanted to hang Christmas stockings and get all the kids pictures by theirs. She has made one for EVERY member of the family! That's 45 stockings at least! All different. She had to work on Evan's and Everett's so I could bring it home for Santa to fill! Here are all of our stockings in age order left to right.

Lows and the Chrippens with their stockings 

(I have two brothers...Chris and Cody. We differentiate their families by saying the Chrippens or the Corippens. Pretty great, right?)

My cutie patooties.

All the cousins helping to dig the umu...the big hole in the ground to cook the turkey! Tradition! It's what you get when you have Islander brothers-in-law! Please bless the fire department doesn't come again this year!

Addie and Uncle Harvey.

My friend Meghan Fischer that visited me in Canada came over Thanksgiving morning so we could introduce the babies to each other outside the womb! 3 weeks apart about?

Everett was NOT happy for some reason! Maybe because he knew it was the last day in California? Probably.

Better shot of the babes...Everett and Evan. E names must be popular this year!

And I really thought we had pictures of delicious Thanksgiving dinner eaten outside on the front lawn but I guess not?! Afterward Mer Mer gave the out-of-towners a few Christmas presents...JAMMIES! I always love that gift! And these girls all look so adorable!

Adaleigh Jane and Aleia Jane...3 days apart!! To cute.

Cousinly love.

Brotherly love. :) Addie loves Zach so much.

Nanny (My dad's mom) meeting Everett. 97 years young!!

4 generations! Love you Nanny!

The fun the cousins have while we are in California.

Here's a Thanksgiving Pie picture instead of dinner. 

And while we are all together we 3 have to get a birthday picture together because we are ALL born on AUGUST 1!! This year Ryan turned 10, I turned 30, and Harvey turned 40!! Birthday Buddies!

Bet you can guess what this is...man they were SOOOO sad as the plane took off. Granted we did get them up at 4;30 AM to get to the airport by 6, but they were just crying and so teary and sad!!! "Can't they just turn the plane around and land so we can get out and stay longer?!" I hear you buddy I really do!!! Believe me!! It was hard for me to hear and tell them all the great reasons we should go back to the frozen tundra. But they were pretty ridiculous and lucky me got to sit right between them. They LOVE California. They LOVE Papa and Mer Mer, and they LOVE their cousins!

Ugh...Welcome home kids! Aren't you excited to be back. I told you it'd be worth it!

Boo. Lucky for us the roads were good until about 1.5 hrs from home. (It's a 3 hr trip).

Then they just kept getting worse. Ugh. No thank you. TAKE ME BACK! DON'T LEAVE ME HERE!! My worst nightmare. So glad Justin was driving. I really despise winter and its roads. And its length. 

Guess that trip and a 4 am wake up period was getting to him.

No more words. The only up side is we got home and then this happened. So glad we got home before the storm. It was literally hours later it started.

That is A LOT of snow! Took forever to clear.

Frosted eyebrows. It's beginning to feel a lot like Christmas! 

At last! A picture to bring me happiness again. Gotta love that this boy is wearing shorts??! The plane has landed buddy boy. We are back in Canada now. Sorry!

The best part about this trip was that we got home hours before Alumni so Justin still got to play! That way I didn't feel guilty for taking him to California and having him miss the big tourney. These lucky girls got a pop to share.

Go #8!

And this concludes Thanksgiving Celebrations. My husband is so studly when he is playing sports. Especially basketball. Ow ow!