A Visit With the Turks

We had a super fun day yesterday (December 30th)!! I was fortunate to grow up down the street from the wonderful Caso family - Larry, Dianne, Michelle and Stacey - and yesterday Stacey and Mike Turk were kind enough to invite us over to their beautiful home in El Dorado Hills. Their kids, Carter and Olivia, are very close in age to Deacon and Maren, so they had a blast, too.

I was hoping to scan some old pictures of Stacey and the family for this post, but I didn't get it done, so hopefully sometime soon we'll feature a nice Caso retrospective for everyone's enjoyment. :)

For now, here are some pictures from yesterday!

Olivia, aka Dorothy and Toto!


Catching up... Larry and Dianne Caso and Terri


I guess Maren figured she'd better borrow one of Olivia's princess dresses to be suitably dressed for our visit.


Mike , Carter, Deacon and the Transforming Car!


Deacon and Carter (and the car)


Some group pics...

Christmas in Auburn

Some pictures from yesterday, December 29th...

Before we left for Auburn, we stayed at Grandma and Grandpa's house in Sacramento. Here, the kids enjoy a story with Grandpa!


I'll miss seeing Deacon's human head, but his new octupus head is cute, too!


We've arrived in Auburn! Here's Auntie Kay and Terri.


A present for Chase


A present for Papa


More presents = extreme happiness!


It's a doggie AND a purse! I WUV it!!


A present for Dain


Opening presents


Dain, Chase, Deacon and the SNAKE!


Daddy evades the dreaded snake.


A new book for Maren!


Kay and Grammie


Papa and Maren

It's A Wonderful Life

Another Christmas celebration yesterday, this time at Grandma and Grandpa's house in Sacramento!

It's for you, see? E-L-I-A-S!


Havin' fun


Later in the evening, Deacon would be the first official winner of this Candy Land game.


A gift for Grandpa


It's just what I've always wanted!!!


Elias with cuddly Destoroyah

Christmas v. 2.0

Christmas keeps going and going... we arrived in Fair Oaks and started opening more presents!

More stocking stuffers...




Maren checks out the decor


Maren and Gramps


Coffee mug + picture of grandkids = ONE HAPPY GRAMMIE!


It's in a big box and has dinosaurs... gifts don't get much better than this.


Putting together a dinosaur adventure set and a cradle for Maren's new doll


And finally, a tea party!

Road Trip

With the car packed to overflowing, we made our way from Burbank to Sacramento in record time. Here are a few cell phone pics!

Super Christmas Mega-Blog!

All of these are from Christmas Morning. Merry Christmas everyone!
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The living room at 6:30 a.m... Looks like Santa brought an ocean tent for Deacon and a princess bike for Maren! And channel 9 provided the music and yule log on TV!

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Just waking up.

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Not ready for Santa.

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Shark!

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Stocking stuffers!

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Maren says, "I wuv my new underwears!"

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Looks like Santa was hungry!

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Jellyfish socks!

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Dora bubble bath!

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Deacon steps in to assist.

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Maren takes her bike outside to try it out.

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Looking at the e-cards sent by Grammie, Gramps and Uncle Chris!

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Eatin' waffles

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A fireplace in the kitchen!

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And finally, a warm bath with a cuddly anglerfish.