Lots to write about!
First of all, we spent last weekend camping up in Big Sur in celebration of the birthdays of two of our friends. We have a "new" cabover camper that we picked up a few weeks back, and we got to use it for the very first time. We had SUCH a good time. Colten is a great little camper. He's pretty much always stoked to be outdoors. Being in the carseat for hours on end, however, is another story. We sort of try to plan our biggest driving stretches for when we know he'll be ready to nap. I ended up spending much of the car ride in the backseat attempting to entertain a four month old. On another note, it was the first time that we've experienced clear weather in Big Sur - and the coastline up there is absolutely breathtaking. We were also just super stoked on all the friends and friends of friends that we camped with. I'm continually impressed with how open and down-to-earth this group is.
Our other big news is that we hosted our third annual Pre-Thanksgiving dinner on Saturday night (we actually skipped last year's, so can we still say third annual?). We literally had something like 40 people over for dinner. And I absolutely cannot believe how wonderfully it turned out! I'm so very happy to have such a diverse, amazing group (maybe I should say groups) of friends. There were three other new babies, so the front room turned into baby-landia. Then in the backyard we had four six-foot tables laid out end to end to make one long dining area, and chairs encircling the fireplace in the grass. Everyone brought food, which we squeezed onto the dining room and kitchen tables. I think I had to wait in line something like twenty minutes before I got to serve myself. When I finally got my food and walked outside, there were nearly thirty people all seated, eating at candlelit tables under the white twinkly lights in the avocado tree above. I really enjoy hosting parties, even though it means that I don't get to sit much and rarely end up talking to anyone for very long. It just cool to bring everyone together and to see how people I never would have imagined having anything in common turn out to have grown up in the same neighborhood or end up having mutal interests or even friends. After all that, I'm now feeling fully prepared to host "real" Thanksgiving dinner with family on Thursday. Compared to 40, 18 for dinner seems like nothing.
Just one more thing before I go. This morning I was thinking about how we really need firewood for our outdoor fireplace and how I should have thought to have people bring extra wood, and how I should ask family to bring wood on Thanksgiving because I hate spending money to buy crappy wood at the grocery store. So our gardener, Temo, shows up this morning, and I'm outside chatting it up and showing off the baby when he suddenly looks up and says, "hey, do you want some firewood?". It turns out he has a tree cutting business (as well as a yardcare business) and has lots of extra wood. So he's bringing me a cord of firewood this week. I love it when that happens. So anyways, I could really use some extra money...
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