Thanksgiving - Parents meet the Parents edition

Well Joe and I are back in town after an epic Thanksgiving weekend with the parents! Both sets! Yep, that's right Amy and Gary met Karen and Tom and well, I'd have to say the meet up was a success. I mean look at these guys, they are practically besties, right?!

Kickin' the kids butts on a post- Turkey meal walk. We needed it after ingesting too much/not enough of my fav. sweet potato soup!

And Karen's deeeeelish pumpkin and zuchinni bread...


As the parents bonded, the kids were busy perfecting our jump shots, obviously.


Jess and Paul - take 1- the starfish jump

Sarah and Joe - take 2 - the toyota jump and the meditating buddha

Jess and Paul - Take 3 - bendy limbs

Thanksgiving day treated us to an awesome sunset from the ridge!

But much to our family's dismay, the calorie burn didn't stop there - Joe and I coerced the crew into a little paper crane folding for the wedding. Here's a shot of Joe leading the crane folding workshop. My dad is probably asking for some extra help on the elusive "square" step, Tom is surely chanting our mantra to himself, "Happily Ever After," - right Tom?! And Paul is probably kicking back and thinking, C'mon Gary, it's not that hard! ha!

They rocked it! Although, not without a fair amount of good hearted griping :).

We even recruited the F4L to help! I'm thinking there might be some forced smiles here, especially from Ryan :).

We folded so many, we couldn't even fit all of them in our luggage!


Joe and I managed to sneak away for a couple runs! Including this "burly" one to the top of the Ramona Dam.

And this one around the lake...

I had to figure in a few ways to offset all the turkey, mashed potatoes and pumpkin pie I ate so I could fit into a wedding dress or two for the wedding dress shopping extravaganza! My mom, my future mother-in-law and the sister accompanied me to brave black Friday Wedding dress shopping! And well, these ladies helped me find a beautiful dress on a super Black Friday special! I felt so lucky to have us all together for this! Here's a quick shot from our pre-shopping girls lunch at the Winery! For a pic of the dress, well, you'll just have to come to the wedding!

All in all, maybe one of my favorite Thanksgivings ever! Joe and I feel so, so, so, so, so, so, so thankful to have not just one, but TWO families behind us. I have to say that one of the coolest things about getting married is the coming together of families. I just love the idea of family extending beyond blood relations, it's such a peaceful and joyful thing to me. And well I'm super happy to say that this family extending was truly peaceful and joyful!!

-Love, our kitchen crew!