Beautiful Day for the Zoo

After living here for two-plus years, I’ve come to love fall in CA.  It is nothing like back East but it does have its fair share of color changes and some leaves coming down (thanks to the gardeners we don’t have to rake!).  And it has these gorgeous, sunny, warm days.  They just seem like a bonus summertime.  Californians call it Indian Summer but that’s not what I think of it as; more like Bonus Beauty Autumn Days.

We invited Gramma Hurley to come to the zoo with us one Sunday after Thanksgiving.  It was Ollie’s first time and he loved the animals (though we wanted to pet them all and we could only do that in the petting zoo area).  Highlights included the Prairie Dog and Meerkat area, the baby turtles and our train ride.  Lily is still talking about it.  

Thanksgiving in Pictures

Here, as promised, a few scenes from our Thanksgiving feast.  
Little Man is growing…his vest is a little TOO tight and short

But he sure is handsome!

A little presto-chango of the birthday decor and VIOLA, Happy Thanksgiving!

That sums it all up!

Its beginning to look a lot like…

CHRISTMAS!
Today Lily, Ollie and I went on an adventure.  Ollie has taken a massive morning nap two days in a row (both days Lily has been at school!) so he is energized for the afternoon.  It really helped things work out well today.  After picking Lily up at school, we needed to find two angel tree gifts for her classroom.  Having chosen a girl and boy present-a book bag and a pair of shoes-I didn’t think it would be a challenge. But it is really hard to find plain-ish book bags in November.  In August, no problem.  Hard once school has begun.  We rarely venture to the mall but since it was such a gorgeous day out and we could do some walking around in the sunshine, that’s where we headed.  
     
As we made our way to the first stop…guess who crossed our path?!?
SANTA!
He was walking with an assistant.  This being Silicon Valley and the most frou-frou mall around, he is a truly professional Santa.  The Real Deal.  Real beard.  Real jolly.  Even white brows.  He gave Lily a huge smile and wave.  She stopped dead in her tracks.

We found our book bag at Pottery Barn Kids and Lily had a great time playing with all the toys (she is such a good kid she didn’t ask for a single thing-was just happy to play with what was on display).  Then we headed to find some shoes–for a gift and for each child.  Every little person in the house is growing!  Needless to say, Ollie has his first pair of hard soled shoes and Lily now has some new Twinkle Toes that she wanted to have on her floor next to her bed while she slept.


After our shopping success we celebrated with hot fudge sundaes at McDonald’s!  As Lily has been known to say, it was a GREAT day!

But, wait-there’s more!

We went hunting for Santa.  We still don’t have a picture of anyone sitting on his lap.  Maybe this year?  A short walk and we found him.  He was very lonely as it was the middle of the day in the middle of the week.  Lily didn’t want to sit on his lap today (we can come back later, she said), but he came over to us and kneeled down and had a nice conversation with Lily.  It was so cute and special.  And the best part?  The part that made me want to squeeze her?  When he asked what she would like for Christmas, she replied, “A pair of slippers.  Fuzzy pink ones.”  That’s all.  Nothing else.  OMG.  I could have died.  She is a special girl.  

You can bet on someone getting some slippers come Christmas morning!