shmanksgiving.

we had a fabulous thanksgiving this past week. since levi's interviews are excused absences {lucky} we got to spend 10 whole days for thanksgiving in california and at my parents house. =) it was nice. but i will say that i'm having a hard time getting back into the swing of things now that we're home. unpacking is a chore. and i hate it so much. but anyways, here are the pictures from our adventures

{grandma knows what we like. we spent many a hours playing the "drums"} 

 {we were having a rough time with our little teefer coming in. and it probably doesn't help to have mom taking pictures of it either haha}

 {dad and baby's new favorite thing to do. baby likes to rip dad's hair out too. haha}

 thanksgiving dinner was delicious for baby. he got turkey, mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes, and uncle josh's favorite to feed him-- pumpkin pie. he was quite satisfied eating big people food. 

 {the cat sits and listens to josh play every day. it's pretty funny to watch. her tail also keeps time like a metronome.} 

we got to open our christmas presents early so they didn't have to ship them to us. it was fabulous!  

surprisingly, the beast is quite good at opening presents. he is his mothers boy, not wasting anytime ripping that paper off, eating tags, putting them in his mouth. it was quite fun to watch him get all excited for the toys, and become very impatient while we were trying to take the cords/tags off of all of them. 

 his friends are going to be jealous of this bad boy. the eyes of the truck move and everything. 

 we hit the mother load with this one. 

 {he was really tired while we were opening these, which is why he was not excited to look at the camera. he did however enjoy them after his nap}

mom got a SEWING MACHINE- which she was very excited for, a new diaper bag {necessity}, an apron, some recipe books, candy, clippers to cut levi's hair and some other stuffs. it's all still in the car so i'll have to look later. dad got some more wii remotes and some contraptions for his bosch, which i was excited for. because you can grate a whole block of cheese on that bad boy. it's incredible.

all in all, it was quite the successful trip. it's so crazy that school's almost over. wahoo for christmas. have i mentioned that i am loving this cold weather and snow right now? so weird. but i do. 

san fran man.

 the vacation we were looking forward to was..... a little interesting. to say the least. the hotel, as mentioned in the last post, blew. with a capital B. it was awful. zak hated every second of it. and to add on top of that, it was pouring rain for most of the days. someday, i will want to go back there, but this trip was....more than enough for the moment.

 this rain cover was the most important thing we've ever bought. so worth the money. it saved the child. while we were freezing our tails off walking home from hard rock cafe in the pouring rain, he was nice and toasty under there. lucky dog. 

 the next day was quite nice, even though it turned out to be quite chilly. 54 degrees my butt. we went to the golden gate bridge, fisherman's wharf, pier 39 and ghiradelli square. we had delicious gingerbread hot cocoa, fabulous grilled mahi mahi, clam chowder in sourdough bowls and much much more. ahh. it was fabulous. i love eating out.

this is one of my favorite restaurants, and had to give levi the full experience. baby loved it. the monkeys moving were his favorite. second was the waterfall, and then the elephants. he's become quite the little traveler. he was loving all the places we went to.

ugh. these pictures depress me just looking at them. this was the drive back over the pass to reno. on interstate 80. yes, there is only one lane. and yes, we were only going about 20 mph. so it took us about 5 1/2 hours to get back instead of 4.

however, on the plus side of this trip, levi was unofficially accepted to University of Pacific!! wahoo! they loved him, as most people do. the associate dean interviewed him and emailed him after and said that he would be a great asset to the school and he would love to see him there. plus, they only interview about 200 people, and they accept 140 of them and because he interviewed before december 1st, they said the interview is just for "convincing you to come here". awesome possum.

and now we need to make a decision of where we want to live. by next week. tough tough tough.

you know you're poor when....

your hotel room is this. somehow, our room ended up destroyed. i blame the baby. but yes, this was our room. notice there is no bathroom or shower in it. there was also no elevator so we had to walk up 4 flights of stairs every day. i will also mention that the walls were so thin that you could hear our child scream on ALL four floors. that was lovely. that's what we get for spending $40.00 a night instead of $100.

or when you buy a cargo carrier for more room in the car and because your car doesn't have racks, you have to strap it through your car. and listen to the flaps flap on the car. for eight hours. and then four more. and then stick a tiedye burp rag under the flap so that it doesn't make noise. yes, it looks ghetto.

you go out to eat every night in san francisco and get to the point where you share an appetizer platter to save money. and then get very angry when they charge you an extra $6.00 for a side salad. that just seems a little expensive in our opinion.

you watch the commericals on tv for black friday and wish you had money to spend.

however, someday we will look back at these stories and think that it was the best time of our lives....someday.

this was the one time he was happy in the hotel. seriously. he hated it. 

seventh heaven.

did you think my post would be about that fabulous 90's show that i watched every week with jessica biel?? tricked ya! we are just in heaven with us being 7 MONTHS OLD! i know i say it everytime, but seriously, he's so old now! it's crazy. this is definitely my favorite stage so far with him, because he can't crawl quite yet, but he loves playing and talking with us =) 

some of our favorite things include: 

{helping with the laundry} 

{doing anything with dad}

{our exersaucer. i love the hat. and how it squishes his cheeks. hehe}

{playing in our highchair. this is cornmeal. and is basically the most intriguing/awesome thing ever}

{stealing candy out of the bowl when sitting on the sink. no matter how far i put it away from him. he always finds it. it's quite impressive.} 

{being a terror. haha} 

{being really really really ridiculously good looking.} 

playing with the kitty.

trying to eat anything mom and dad do.

dancing. actually it's more like wii hulahooping... 

rawring. 

scooting backwards. 

pulling our glasses off. 

bath time. 

yelling. 

blowing immense amounts of bubbles. 

sticking everything in my mouth.

he's pretty fabulous in our opinion. we'll keep him.