Truth – I debated far to long over the tile of this post. Also, November is nearly three months behind us. Phil prides himself on his punctuality, but we can’t seem to adhere to the same level of promptness with our posts these days. Saying we were busy always seems like such a cop out, but November certainly was a busy month for us.
Most Novembers Phil pulls out his cummerbund and cuff links, I wear heels for maybe the only time all year, and we celebrate the Marine Corps’ birthday. Fancy attire aside, it was fun to have a date night, our first in far too long.
Happy Birthday, Marine! 
Beach stroll with Grandpa & Lainey 
Palm Springs
November also brought us lots of visitors. First up, Lainey and Grandpa! We spent a week together in Carlsbad (where life is rad) before heading to Palm Springs for a long weekend. We never visited during our first stint in SoCal so I was excited to check it out. Our first morning we took the aerial tramway up to San Jacinto Peak. It was substantially colder at 2,600ft than in the valley and most of us were not prepared for the chilly temperatures. It was still a beautiful ride up and the kids loved taking in the view and wandering among the huge trees. The rest of the weekend was filled with date shakes, a double date night (thanks grandparents,) and lots of time at the pool. Even the adults enjoyed the water slide!
San Jacinto Peak 
Peering down on the valley 
Back to 95 degrees!
Since we can’t seem to get enough family time now that Ben and Carolyn are in San Diego, the kids and I ventured down to Pacific Beach to hang out with our favorite little dude the next weekend. Sophia loves helping with Henry and it’s pretty sweet to see how much Henry loves hanging out with “SophiaWill.” They’re clearly a packaged deal in his book!
We may have moved coasts but continuing in the tradition of the last four years, we hosted Thanksgiving dinner at Cafe 524. I know most people hate the stress of planning the menu, all the food prep and figuring out how all those casserole dishes are going to fit in their oven, but I love hosting Thanksgiving. I have a few tried and true recipes but I usually mix it up each year and am always looking for ways to incorporate more veggies into the carb load known as Thanksgiving.
Sophia + Henry 
Already in a coma and we haven’t ate yet 
The Turkey day gang 
Let’s eat! 
Hey, Arnold!
In addition to planning all the eats, Sophia had lots of fun making place cards with Mumsie. We were so excited Mumsie came for her first visit! It may have been an unusually cold and rainy few weeks, but it was wonderful having Mumsie in California for Thanksgiving and her birthday.
Rounding out all the November activities was a quick trip up to Newport Beach to have breakfast with friends we don’t get to see nearly often enough. It was great to finally meet their little guy. Now if only they would move back to California!