I havent written about it, but I am teaching a Pre-Calculus class for CORE (the homeschool center the girls are "schooled" through). It is a REALLY, great and convenient job for me to have right now. I teach Monday, Tuesday and Thursday from 1 - 1:55. It is a 5 minute bike ride for me to get there and the girls are with my parents (they live behind us, we have a gate that goes to their house!). My dad used to read to them every night from the Bobbsey Twin series, so we just shifted the time he reads to the afternoon, so it is a win-win situation for everyone!
Anyway, Shane and I both had the entire week off and took FULL advantage by making the most of our family time together.
Our first stop was a trip to Williams, Oregon. Last year, my friend Noel bought half a pig from the MUIR family. On her way home she was generous enough to give us a pound of bacon, sausage and pork chops. This was THE BEST PORK we had ever tasted, so we wanted to get our own the next time around....Ready for pick up the Monday of Thanksgiving break, PERFECT!!! Let's take a road trip.
We stopped in Shasta to have lunch and stretch. The girls found this dog just wandering around, it was the friendliest dog ever. Of course, the girls refused to eat because they HAD to play with the dog. Jill had brought a tennis ball just in CASE there was a dog at the ranch house in Oregon. How perfect! This dog loved playing ball and of course wanted to give Shane some love.
The ranch house was SPECTACULAR. You can see in the photos, this place was just magical. One of the coolest things about this trip was that it was so different than a normal vacation for us. Usually, we are on the move, hiking and biking and just GO, GO, GOING!!! This trip we were MELLOW.
We played cribbage and did yoga. Basked in the sun and read our books (Shane - 5th Game of Thrones book, Me - Grain Brain). The girls colored and played outside. Shane watched Jeremiah Johnson and a James Bond flick. The girls watched HOURS of Christmas movies and stayed up until 9pm!!!(a tradition we started last year - one weekend of Christmas movie marathons). And I caught up on the blog. It was so out of the ordinary for us, but so enjoyable. If you would like to spend a MAGICAL weekend here, or get in on this awesome pork, send me your contact information and I will pass it along for you!! A huge THANK YOU to the MUIRs for this memorable and magical family vacation!! Find and LIKE them on FACEBOOK by clicking HERE.
More pictures from Oregon:
We headed out on Monday to ROGUE MEATS to pick up our pork. We were quite concerned about an entire 300 pound pig fitting in our car/ice chests....but it worked out pretty good. The hams (4 - 30# hams!!!) did not fit in the coolers, but they stayed frozen for the entire 4 hour drive home!!
Our vacation mentality oozed over into our days leading up to Thanksgiving, which was wonderful. We are blessed in that our girls can play for HOURS without needing anything from us, so we were able to continue our lazy mornings playing cribbage and drinking coffee, reading our books and blogging. It was impossible to pass up our beautiful 70 degree weather, so we went on bike rides each day, hiking or on the girls' famous scooter adventures (This is Shane's activity with the girls...I really need a picture of him on his PINK scooter....)
Thanksgiving started with the AMAZING breakfast, found HERE....except that I bake the (grain free) "pancake" in the oven and then slice it like pizza (I am not a huge pancake fan...they require too much time standing in one place!!). Let me just say, you will never taste this DELICIOUS of bacon if you are just buying your standard bacon at Trader Joe's....this bacon is OUT OF THIS WORLD!!!!
I dont have any pictures from our dinner, I think I was too busy!! But it was Delish, followed up with a great evening sunset hike in Upper Park.
 |
Black Friday always involves decorating for Christmas. Of course we have to have proof for WHOSE TURN it is to put the angel on top of the tree.....followed by some sort of activity. This year we biked 3 miles through the park and ended with some frisbee for Shane and I, and some make believe play for the girls. Look at this beautiful tree...
This is what Jill looks like on a 20" bike!! She wants to ride this bike so badly (it is Alli's from last Christmas, but she has grown out of it.) But Jill is just not tall enough. I need to skate next to her so I can help her stop. What a cutie!!
Shane and Rich spent Saturday kayaking and the girls and I did the transport for them.
That is for a later date, though......
The boys made it to the pick up boat launch at 5:20pm, headlamps on, frozen to the bone and happy as can be. Gotta love this type of FUN!!!
 |
REALLY, another picture of food...so sorry, but yes. This is again THE BEST PORK EVER!!!! I cooked some of the sausage up for breakfast. The directions said to drain half the fat and then saute the apples in cinnamon and the remaining fat. Holy cow, there was no fat!!! This is the leanest, best, most fantastic sausage I've had in my life. I cannot say enough fantastic things about it. THANK YOU ALLIE MUIR!!! We will be buying a whole pig for ourselves next year!!! So, if you can believe it, DECEMBER 1st is here and we spent the day kayaking down the Sacramento. The girls were MORE than disappointed that they did not get to go kayaking, so Sunday was the family kayak... |
 |
And the closing shots of our week off...The girls pulling is through a section of Chico Creek. It is running LOW this time of year...I dont recommend this passage to anyone...It was NASTY!!! Bring on the RAIN!!!!
No comments:
Post a Comment