Holidays in Review

Happy New Year!
Time for a review of the holiday season which will most likely will come in parts.

Turkey Travels:
Our Thanksgiving road trip to California was perfect. We loved going to bed when we were tired and waking up when we weren't, reading a lot, hot spring visits, the ocean, the wine, and a friendly visit from our friend Joe. Our first days brought us to San Louis Obispo and Pismo State Beach. We explored the cute little town and ventured on our 'biking' tour of wineries. We rented bikes from a friendly gentleman in a side alley and set out up the hill out into the country - wine country. Five miles later with inches of a bike lane and cars whizzing past at about 65 mph, we decide to turn around and come back with our car. Smart move on our part but it was fun believing we could tour the wineries on our bikes.

We ditched the road to ride on the beach and then ditched the bikes to read and drink wine on the beach

We moved onto Refugio State Beach north of Santa Barbara. We hiked up to our first hot springs and met with the tell tale smell of sulfur. It was everything we expected, foreigners and naked bodies.

Our last few nights brought us into the mountains, creek side near Ojai for Thanksgiving and meeting Joe. We had a great campsite and cooked an AMAZING thanksgiving dinner on the fire. Gabe and Joe prepared our cornish game hens over the fire and we had the appropriate sides from boxes. It was so so delicious. We walked off our food indulgence and made friends with our neighbors whom passed on directions from a hippie to another hot spring. We were all game and successfully found them based on these directions:

Drive about 3 miles down the road, you'll see 3 blue trash containers, turn right? (2people think left. Drive until you see a flashing light - park there and head left. You'll see them below.

By the time we go, maybe 6ish, it is pitch black but lucky for us we find them and they are glorious. Right next to a quickly flowing river, the hot springs were much clearer (i could see my leg under the water and moonlight), larger therefore less smelly, and so so warm. We were pleased we ventured out only to return to our campsite to eat an entire pumpkin pie with coffee. So on vacation...

The next day we ventured back to Tempe on a fun road trip listening to audio TAPES :) It was restful, rejuvenating, blissful and everything we had dreamed of.

Holiday Cheer

I love this time of year. I love listening to Christmas songs, decorating the house and tree, and baking sweets for loved ones. I also really like traditions. Gabe and I have both carried our own family traditions into each others lives and will continue to practice them. I also like the idea of starting new family traditions that we can do as our own family. Here are some that we've started:

• Bake sugar cookies and custom design one of your own
• Buy a new ornament for our tree picked out together - maybe this will be changed to make our own family christmas ornament
• Name our christmas tree - last year it was fred the douglas fir, this year we have scarlet
• Added this year -- tour our neighborhood holiday lights on our bikes - super fun!
• have a gingerbread house build off

That's all I can think of so far. What are your family traditions, new or old?
because i teach preschool we have these AWESOME neon food colors, however also because i teach preschool, our "normal" colors are at school...Our stockings from both sides of the family -- wheeler side are the large ones, wards side are the smaller ones in the middle. Gabe's grandma has the Wheeler ones made, my aunt made my little one and I made gabe's little one. so fun!Scarlet

Wheeler Adventures

gabe and i are very fortunate. We are able to be with family on both holidays this year - Thanksgiving AND Christmas! This is the first time ever since we've been living in Arizona. Kathy and Jim flew down for Thanksgiving this year and we had quite the adventures!

They flew in on Thanksgiving day and we just hung around and cooked some good food. Gabe was learning how to carve the turkey and Kathy made our gravy for us, as I'm not the best gravy maker yet.

On black friday we slept in (awww so good) and then decided that we could try going to a couple of stores for some good deals. Our first destination: Kohls. We lasted approximately 3 minutes inside that store upon seeing the line that we couldn't find the end of after walking for that amount of time. Thankfully we were all on the same page and turned around quickly.

We had a lot of good food while they were here: My Big Fat Greek Restaurant, Pei Wei, Ra Sushi, Oregano's, Gardunos, and I still think I'm missing some. Gabe was able to take a good amount of time off but I had kids all week so was unable to take much time off during their stay.

On Saturday we went to the Grand Canyon in one day and looking back wished we would have stayed over night for a few reasons. Nonetheless, we had an amazing visit to this beautiful land. Gabe and I had never been there during the day so it was a new adventure for us as well. It is expansive and captivating. I could have watched that landscape for days - given there weren't hundreds of people around. It was definitely chilly there and we were hoping to stay for sunset. We did stay for a good amount of dusk but decided to head back before the sun was completely down. Plus you couldn't really stand and just enjoy it all because if you were there long enough (10 seconds) without taking a picture of your friends/family or being in a picture, you were soon a photographer for someone else. It was a fun day in Northern Arizona.

It was amazing to see the colors of the canyon change with the setting sun.

We went to Los noches de Luminarias at the Garden which was quite spectacular this year. We have a grand installation by Chihuly there right now through May of next year. Chihuly is a glass blower and is known around the world for his glass sculptures. I hadn't seen the pieces during the night prior to this I was pleasantly surprised and delighted. It looked amazing at night. I love to walk the trails and listen to music, so Lumi is the best of this because you do both. You can see more pictures of the sculptures that are at the garden by visiting the the Garden's website. It was fun to take family to Lumi too, I've always wanted to but never been able. Jim, Kathy, and Gabe came and met me for lunch one day as well so they were able to see where I work which was fun.

The Coyotes hockey game was another highlight. They played the Kings and won in an exciting last period. The whole week was fun and enjoyable. It was wonderful to spend time with Jim and Kathy, we had a great visit.