kelly and her boys

we’ve had wet and “cold” (for california) weather lately and i’m loving it! right now it is raining and 47 degrees. my only christmas wish since i moved to california 30 years ago is to have cold weather. i just might get my wish this year! last year was pretty close, but this year looks much more promising. for all my friends who get to experience 4 seasons, maybe you’ll understand that this tennessee girl has never been able to get used to the warm so. cal winter weather. maybe you wish you could have a warm christmas? but, for me, just as the song says, “a tender tennessee christmas is the only christmas for me”. maybe i’ll get to have my “tennessee christmas” in california! we’ll have to wait and see…

monday night we had fun decorating our tree together. doug did his one job of bringing the tree in. clayton and nick put the lights on. hunter was trying to finish homework so he joined us after the lights were on.

then doug watched as the boys and i put the ornaments on. of course, i was taking the pictures. so, you only see the boys here.

when we were done i asked the boys to stand by the tree for a picture. this is what i got…

what a bunch of goofs!

now we have a lovely tree and our house smells like christmas. yay!

(hey, i seem to be getting the hang of this picture thing!)

as you can see in my previous post i added a picture. well, it was more difficult to do than i expected. i still have some bugs to work out. but, i’m one step closer than before. i’ll get it eventually.

we had a perfect day this thanksgiving. we went to universal studios-hollywood. wednesday we had rain and thursday morning started out the

same. we checked about 5 different websites for weather reports. they ranged from 50% showers all day to light morning rain and clear the rest of the day. who to believe? we decided to go for it. lucky for us the rain stopped as we were en route and we never had another drop the rest of the day! woo hoo! we had so much fun!

we took the tram ride tour of the back lot first thing. the best part of the tour was the crashed plane for war of the worlds. it is a real airplane that was wrecked just for the movie. totally awesome. the next best part was seeing whoville located right next to the bates motel. only in hollywood!

hunter isn’t a fan of thrill rides. so, he and i went to backdraft while doug, nick, and clayton rode the jurassic park ride and the mummy ride. clayton and i went to universal in january for his birthday. so, i was ok with missing the rides. i was very anxious to see how doug and nick felt about the mummy ride. they loved it. we didn’t tell them that it goes backwards. so they got to be as surprised as clayton and i were the first time. totally awesome!

nick's ten seconds of fame

then, we went to the sound stage show, where audience participation is part of the show. well, when nick and i went to universal for his tenth birthday, he was selected to participate. so i said he should volunteer again. sure enough, he was chosen. he did the voice of a man in the movie king kong. then he was the voice of tinkerbell. i wish i could’ve recorded it. he created a very unique high voice. “wee, i’m flying, i’m flying!” it was so funny!

we were done with everything we wanted to do by 5:00. the park closed at 6. so, we took a walk down “city walk” and then went home. at home we played a game of buzz word. my team of doug, hunter, and myself won. yippee! it was a very close game.

so there is our “perfect thanksgiving” in a nutshell. i hope your thanksgiving was just as memorable.