Klingenmaier's in CA: Day 6 & 7- Thanksgiving Day

Day 6 of the Klingenmaier CA vacation we had originally thought we'd head out to Joshua Tree and do a little light hiking. However, after walking throughout the zoo the day before we still a bit worn out by Wednesday morning. Both Micah and Luke were fighting runny, gunky noses and hadn't been sleeping/napping the greatest. We weren't so sure that hiking around Joshua Tree in the cold wind without adequate warm clothing, especially for the boys, was a good idea. So we decided to post pone the Joshua Tree excursion and opted for something indoors and a little closer to home. Aaron found a children's museum in Palm Springs that looked good so we loaded up the boys and headed east. The weather in Beaumont was not so pretty but Palm Springs was beautiful...real CA weather. :) It was a smaller museum but had plenty to offer a 19 month old and almost 11 month old. We all had a great time watching the boys play, enjoying the warm weather and just hanging out. I took as many pictures as I could before my camera battery died. Here are a few, in no particular order...

The Micah Man learning about magnets

Coloring Pictures

Coloring a turkey in honor of Thanksgiving

Playing in the sandbox outside - adults trying our best to keep the sand IN the box.

Micah chasing a ball around the grassy area. Poor kid was a little small to keep up with all the older kids running around and had to seriously fight for his toys!

Back to the sand

Taking a joyride

Testing out the police motorcycle

More fun toys

Digging in the archeological exhibit, complete with the costume

Aaron and Micah's turn on the motorcycle

Making a ramp/maze for the ball to roll down

When we got back home Erika and I got busy prepping for our Thanksgiving meal. We definitely felt very 'grown up', planning and prepping everything for the meal ourselves. It was so fun to be able to chop and chat. I rather prefer cooking that way!

We found a recipe for the turkey on allrecipes.com that sounded good so we decided to give it a try. We had to brine the turkey for 24 hours in a salt water mixture. I thought my stock pot would be big enough but I was way off. Aaron found a large bucket in our garage and put it to good use holding the turkey. So we are a little bit on the redneck side! It turned out fabulous regardless of the slightly unconventional way it was prepared.

View of our fridge the night before Thanksgiving. Not much room. We had to get creative with the small amount of space but it worked out.

Luke 'helping' Erika make a mint chocolate chip cheesecake for dessert

Some final preparations of the turkey before popping it in the oven on Thanksgiving morning

Luke was just a little anxious for the bird to be done! It smelled SO good!

Sister Cooks - our first Thanksgiving together as the adults. No more kiddie table for us!

The finished meal! It's making me hungry all over again.

Matt and Jung digging in

Mmmmm. Good.

The boys even did the dishes afterward!

... Sort of.

After completely stuffing ourselves and getting the meal mostly cleaned up, we enjoyed a relaxing afternoon of watching football, naps, playing with Luke and Micah, and chatting. The DeJong's joined us for dessert later on in the evening adding two more little boys to the mix. It was so much fun watching them all play and interact together. Needless to say there were toys everywhere! Which is really how it should be. It was a wonderful Thanksgiving. We are so very thankful for all of God's blessings and hope to live out our gratitude on a daily basis.

Klingenmaier's in CA: Day 5- San Diego Zoo

Tuesday we ventured south to the world famous San Diego Zoo. The weather was great- sweatshirt weather- perfect for a day walking around the zoo. The zoo wasn't crowded at all and practically all of the animals were out and active. It was really a perfect day for the zoo.

Both boys slept for the majority of the ride down and were very excited when we finally arrived. After a quick picnic lunch in the parking lot we were ready to explore the zoo! I took lots of pictures so I'm going to let the pictures and captions tell the story.

The whole gang by the Zoo entrance

Of course, one of the boys favorite exhibits was the ducks and flamingos. They could have probably watched those silly ducks all day but we figured that we can always go to the park to watch ducks, we can't go to the park to watch tigers, elephants, etc. so we moved on.

Pointing out all the sleeping flamingos standing on one wobbly leg

Watching some species of monkeys- I think we saw at least 5 or 6 different species of monkey while at the zoo. One of the highlights, for Matt at least, was watching a chimpanzee poop in his own hand and then eat it. I had to walk away - that's a bit much for my stomach these days.

This picture is a little blurry, sorry, but I had to post it anyway. The boys were far too interested in the animals to bother looking at the camera.

The Klingenmaier boys

The DeBoer boys, in their matching Calvin sweatshirts

(no, we didn't do that on purpose, it was the warmest sweatshirt Luke had with a hood and Matt was already wearing his. They are super cute though!)

The DeBoer family - rare picture with Luke actually looking toward the camera!

Checking out an interesting animal (I forgot the name).

It was like part giraffe, part zebra, part donkey.

More monkeys

Playing on the hippo statue outside the hippo's tank.

They probably would've stayed there for hours playing if we let them.

I think Luke was watching more monkeys in this picture, but I can't remember exactly what animal it was. Regardless, he was awfully excited and animated!

Watching the polar bears swim around and reach for berries

This mountain lion was right next to the wall of his cage, looking at the spectators, growling, and pacing back and forth. It was a little creepy but pretty cool at the same time. We were just glad that there was a fenced wall between us and the lion. Coming across that sucker in the wild would be terrifying!

Around 3pm the clouds rolled in and the weather cooled off a bit. Time to bust out the blankets for added warmth.

We decided Micah bared a strong resemblance to Mother Teresa... what do you think?

While walking back to the exit we got to see some trainers transporting two of the animals- an Arctic Fox and a New Guinea Singing Dog. It was crazy to see them on leashes walking through the park. At first I thought nothing of it, like they were just regular dogs. I'm sure had it been a lion or tiger walking through the zoo on a leash it would have caught my attention earlier.

Both boys fell asleep once we were on the freeway home and slept until we were ready to stop for dinner. We had a delicious and healthy dinner of fat, I mean fast food, and headed home. We were all ready to hit the hay by the time we got back to the house. Today we are mostly rested and ready for whatever adventures this day has in store for us. Stay tuned...

Klingenmaier's in CA: Day 2,3,&4

We have thoroughly been enjoying our time with the Klingenmaier's these past few days! We've managed to have a 'well-rounded' time thus far, a good mixture of fun and activities and relaxation.

Saturday was a rainy day, which gave us a wonderful excuse for laying around the house in our pajamas until embarrassingly late in the day. We had a great time watching Luke and Micah play and interact with one another. Matt and Aaron got their fill of college football (if there is such a thing). Erika and I did some shopping- nothing really fun like clothes shopping, mostly errands/groceries but it was nice for us to get out of the house without our kids in tow and just hang out together.

Playing/mess making

The next generation of football fanatics

We had thought/hoped that Micah would be encouraged to start walking while here since he'd be challenged to keep up with Luke. This is not the case, at least not thus far. Instead of Micah being influenced by Luke, Luke is being influenced by Micah and will crawl around after him! It is really very amusing - watching Luke chase after Micah by crawling, both boys laughing, Luke having a tough time keeping up with the super crawler. Good times. Good times.

The chase is on!

All around the living room and up the stairs

Taking time out from the chase to give a cousin a hug. Makes me melt, just a little.

Giving us a demonstration of how big they are... SO big!

The main event of Saturday was that the Klingenmaier's had a photo shoot scheduled with the always amazing Mark Leonard (keep an eye on his blog to see the final photos - markleonardimaging.com) Poor Micah had to be woken up from a nap for the photo shoot and started out being a bit of a baby diva, not wanting his picture taken. But he eventually warmed up to the idea and they got some really great shots!

The master in action

Sunday was a fairly normal day for the DeBoer's: church, naps, football. The Klingenmaier's were a bit more adventurous and braved going out to Santa Monica to meet up with a good friend of theirs. Thus, I don't have any great pictures to post from day 3. You'll have to check my sister's blog to see her take on the excursion.

Monday (today) Matt had to be at school for an in-service day. Erika, Aaron, Micah, Luke and I decided we needed to go up to Oak Glen to try for ourselves these cider doughnuts I've been hearing about. We weren't entirely prepared for the weather up there unfortunately and it was extremely cold. The thermometer on the door of the Snow-Line orchard shop read 32 degrees! But we (with the exception of Luke) are from the Midwest so we braved the cold and stuck around for the 20 minutes needed to have fresh, warm cider doughnuts and fresh, hot apple cider. Totally worth it.

sampling various types of cider

Sisters and our boys

Luke was just a little cold! Poor little guy doesn't have a winter coat yet so he was bundled up in a few layers and actually stayed under the blanket - normally he'd kick it off and try squirming out of the stroller. Gotta love my little California boy!

watching the fresh doughnuts coming out of the machine

To say Luke loved the doughnuts would be an incredible understatement. I think he had 3 or 4!

"What do you mean I can't have another doughnut?!?"

We had a nice afternoon of naps and playing around the house then headed to a friend's house to watch the Monday night football game: Broncos vs. Chargers. Too bad the Broncos didn't have the best game but we still had a great time.

Up next: The San Diego Zoo!