November was a fun month. Eli lost both his front teeth right in time for Christmas! He had a hilarious lisp and cracked himself up saying things.
Both of them out:
Us girls all got haircuts and Natalie went with some side-swept bangs:
Gorgeous!
Joe and I had been wanting to spend a day in SF and originally planned on taking the kids but they weren't interested so we snuck away for a day date. We acted like tourists and even rode in a big open bus. It was freezing and so windy on top of the open bus across the golden gate!
We went to the DeYoung museum and walked around a super interesting exhibit about art from the Black Power movement. It was a gorgeous day and super fun to spend it together.
We did our gratitude jar again, even though enthusiasm for that is waning a bit. Somehow, they still like making the turkey pictures:
Over Veterans Day, I went up to Old Greenwood with friends for a girls weekend. It was so fun! We missed Megan, but Mari, Whitney, Melissa and I had fun talking, eating, walking, and driving the golf cart around.
I knew it would probably be awhile before I had another chance to do that with this baby coming so I was so glad we could.
We did drag the kids on a SF outing over Thanksgiving break. We'd been wanting to take them to Alcatraz and we finally did it. It was fun and they seemed to enjoy it. We all listened to the audio tour:
We got lunch and then rented a tandem bike for Joe and Eli and rode across the Golden Gate bridge. This had been a bucket list item for me for years. The actually experience was quite a bit different than I imagined. The tandem bike that we rented for some reason had Eli in front. So, it was terrifying for him because he couldn't steer the bike, only pedal, yet he was in front. Joe said the bike was really hard to control as well, especially around the tight turns on the bike path. I was riding my cruiser which isn't the best and with being pregnant, was lagging behind the others. People would fly past me without any warning, which was kind of scary. The older three were just plain grumpy about how hard the ride was (it was more uphill across). By the time got to everyone else after our first trip across, they were all saying how terrible it was. I didn't love that. I couldn't even get them all to take a picture. Anyway, luckily the way back was more downhill and much easier. It was a beautiful view and I even stopped for a bit to take it in. Everyone seemed in better spirits on the way back to the Sports Basement where we parked and rented the tandem. Maybe it wasn't quite how I had imagined it, but at least we checked that one off the bucket list! :)
Eli, all tuckered out on the couch one night:
He doesn't do that very often anymore.
We spent a nice, quiet Thanksgiving with Grandma and Grandpa Allen at their house. Grandpa made the turkey and provided the mashed potatoes. I made green bean casserole, a sweet potato casserole, rolls, and we both made pies. The only picture I got was of the dessert spread:
We were definitely stuffed by the end of the day!
The day after Thanksgiving, we got tickets to go watch BYU women's soccer team play in the Elite 8 against Stanford. It was our first time at a soccer game. Sadly, BYU was just outmatched and quickly fell behind. It was still a great season for them.
Braving the rain for the game:
(Elizabeth didn't want to be in a picture so she took it :)
It was a great month!
