We made it through that holiday with flying colors.  I’m going to go so far as to say I had fun.  We’ve spent the last 3 Thanksgivings at friend’s houses out here, because traveling back to KC on a holiday is logistically nightmarish.  (Not to mention pricey.)  This year, after evaluating some mitigating circumstances, we decided to host it at our house.  And so, speaking of logistical nightmares, we invited all 20-something people over to join us for dinner.  (24 at last count I believe.)  It was a certainly a good time, if moderately challenging.  That’s just a lot of people, and a lot of food.  Not as hard as I thought though, it went relatively smoothly.  We had two turkeys and a good sized brisket I’d smoked the day before, and went with our favorites for sides.  Mashed potatoes and gravy, green rice casserole, corn, cranberry sauce, dinner rolls, and stuffing.  Maybe some more, who knows, that’s all I can recall at this time of morning.  Oh, and pie…  lots and lots of pie.  We cheated and got them at Costco, and those things are huge.  Oh well, they keep for some length of time I suppose.

Friday after the big turkey-day, I drove Donette and her Mom down to the airport early in the morning, and they left for Hawaii where they met all her sisters.  Since that time, I must say I’ve not accomplished a whole lot.  As a matter of fact, in a somewhat epic bout of laziness, I didn’t even bother getting dressed all weekend.  That, I must say, is a first even for me.  I got up, hit the couch and watched movies all weekend long.  When it got warm enough outside, I crawled out to the back patio and watched movies out there.  Shameful, but relaxing.  I’ve certainly eaten better than I usually do when she’s out of town, if not particularly healthy.  I’ve been subsisting on a steady diet of pie for breakfast, and turkey sliders for lunch and dinner.  Sometimes with a side of green rice or corn, most times not.  Solid meals.

As I not-so-subtly alluded to in the title, we spent that weekend in good ol’ Lake Tahoe.  I have to say we prefer visiting there in the summer time when it’s a little warmer, but it was an enjoyable weekend all the same.  It wasn’t too cold, and the traffic was definitely more tolerable than the summer months.  We didn’t do anything out of the ordinary, just sort of enjoyed the sites.  We did have a very nice dinner on Thursday, at Chart House.  We usually go to Riva Grill for our “one nice dinner out” but took the recommendation of a local for something different, and it worked out quite well.  It’s basically a Landry’s, which puts it dangerously close to our “chain restaurant” black-list, but we decided to give it a go anyway.  Donette and her mom enjoyed the prime rib, and I had an ahi tuna dish that was quite delicious.  As a matter of fact, I had a very similar dinner last time we were at Riva and they utterly destroyed it, so Chart House is a little higher on my list now.  We also did the requisite shopping rounds, took a trip to the must-see Emerald Bay (I never get tired of that view,) and did no small amount of relaxing.

We were in Tahoe Thursday through Saturday, getting back home later in the afternoon.  Sunday was mostly eaten up by a trip out to Carmax in Roseville to look at a new (well, used) sled.  We have been a one-car family for over a decade now, and honestly it works out just fine 99.7% of the time.  But for some reason (bad judgement most likely,) I recently decided I just really needed my own set of wheels.  You know, for those 1/2-dozen days a year when it rains and I can’t easily get to work.  Sigh.  Well, whatever the reason, I got this idea in my head several weeks back and I’ve been shopping ever since.  For the most part I stuck to the Carmax site, which I must say I am now a fan of.  This is the third car I looked at, and it’s just a really easy process.  The first two were fails, one I missed out on by dragging my feet, and then when I saw this last one I was hooked.  It’s four years old, but as close to new as you’re going to get without paying the new-car price.  So, while it was a bit unfortunate her mom had to suffer through an hour of paperwork on her vacation, I went ahead and picked it up that day.  And, as you read it on this page right now, if I only put 1,000 miles on it in the next year we’re going right back to the single-car garage.

Busy weekend.  Busy busy.  Yeah that’s us.  OK maybe not so much.  We were “occupied” though, to say the least.  Donette’s Mom came in to town Saturday night, so we ran down to the airport and picked her up.  Our plans to entertain her during her stay are sketchy, to say the least.  Our first big item on the schedule was to take her wine tasting down in the Napa/Sonoma area.  This, despite the fact that she has no use at all for wine tasting.  Well…  Hey, our options are sort of limited around this place.  It’s a nice area to see, and there was just a little bit of fall color to enjoy.  (Mingled with the rather devastating fire damage from the recent wildfires.)  It was an entire day of driving, to be sure.  Our first stop was one of my favorites, Soda Rock.  Great wine, great place…  But the drive is horrible.  It’s not in Napa or Sonoma actually, but clear past them in the Alexander Valley, a solid hour’s drive past Napa.  Whew, it was a long trip.  We had a shipment to pick up there though, so we made the drive.  (Granted, it only costs about $10 to have it sent to our doorstep.  With gas at $3.50 per gallon, and a 2.5 hour drive each way…  Yeah let’s just not do that math.  It’s a fun place, go with it.)  Next on our little circle was our Sonoma spot of choice, Walt.  I like to fancy myself a Pinot Noir man, and I find theirs to be the best.  At the end of the day, I am 99% sure I couldn’t tell a Pinot from a generic red blend, but that’s my story and I’m sticking to it.  Although this was only our second stop, I was already a bit worn out from driving so we didn’t stay there long.  They were super busy (as always) too, and I didn’t feel like waiting around, so we picked up our shipment from them and then left to grab some lunch at a nearby deli.  From there, our third and last stop was our Napa favorite, Cuvaison.  This is our most recent membership, and I must say we’re very happy with it so far.  (Or maybe the new just hasn’t worn off yet.)  They have a nice variety of wine, and so far we enjoy them all.  Their tasting room is very nice too, with great views, and they manage the crowd by asking that you call beforehand to let them know when you’ll be there.  It was a good way to wrap up the afternoon, before making the arduous drive back up the hill.  We got back into our home area around 5:30, and went directly up to our friends Michael & Alaina’s house to enjoy a nice dinner.  After some delicious pasta we were all absolutely finished, and headed back to our house for an early turn-in.  Whew, busy day.

Merry Halloween to all!  I like this holiday, for no particular reason.  Usually solid Fall weather, festive people running around…  What’s not to like.  We even went to an honest to goodness Halloween party this year.  Saturday night was the annual “blind beer tasting” over at our friends Michael and Alaina’s house.  I believe it’s the sixth annual, and it seems to get a little bigger and better every year.  This year the Halloween theme was a new twist, and I think it was well received.  The same good food and “interesting” beers to sample, mixed in with some truly unusual costumes.

In other random news, we had our carpet replaced last week.  Big deal, people.  It was a little disappointing to be ripping out carpet after only three years in this house, but it was thrashed.  I know we had the cheap stuff put in when they built it, but come on.  Well, whatever, I guess.  We got two quotes, one from the friendly local big-box store and one from an independent contractor.  We ended up going with the independent guy, mainly based on the fact that he was considerably cheaper.  (Which is how we make most of our decisions, for better or worse.)  They did a great job on the carpet, we are quite pleased.  Nothing like some fluffy soft carpet under your feet in the morning, the old stuff was all matted down and gross.  Now the “furniture moving” part of the deal might have been a small let-down.  The deal was they would move all the junk (which there is no small amount of) out of the way, and lay down the carpet.  Well, maybe I didn’t read the fine print, but I erroneously assumed this would also include moving said junk back in place.  Ohhhh, bummer.  In all fairness, I think they just underestimated the size of the job and were ready to get out of our house, and bailed on us.  And, truth be told, as it was my highly-prized Friday evening, I was ready for them to get out of the house too.  So, we have nice new carpet, but also a sizable unplanned project.  Or maybe it’ll just stay where it is, who knows.  I’m kind of getting used to having the bedroom furniture in the master bath.  You can just hop out of the shower and there’s your clothes, right there and handy.  And having the office in the garage?  Not bad at all, and we gain an extra bedroom.  True, it would be nice to have the car in the garage where it belongs, but these are the small trade-offs you have to make sometimes.

Blech, I’m down with the “something” for the first time this season.  Already!  I don’t understand it.  It cannot have anything to do with my penchant for falling asleep on the patio in 50 degree temps, or riding my scooter to work in the cold, or going wine tasting when I’m already starting to feel sick…  No, couldn’t be.  Just bad luck I guess.  I did manage to have some fun over the weekend despite my feverish condition, so it must not be that bad yet.  And it ain’t…  Sore throat, runny nose, blah blah.  The usual crud.  Woe.

Mostly we spent the whole weekend running around with our friends Michael & Alaina.  They are in the process of selling their house, and had a pretty solid stream of showings and open houses lined up, so we agreed to entertain the poor little waifs while they were temporarily homeless.  And, their pup Renfield is Quinn’s best friend, so they’re always excited to get together for some destruction of my landscaping.  We had quite the social weekend.  We hit some wineries, one stray brewery, a few brunches, a dog park, did some grilling…. whew.  Tired me out.  Tired the dog out too, he was asleep until Tuesday afternoon.  The pups did pretty well together as always, but they did tear up my landscaping something fierce.  Ugh, little monsters.  There was also an unusual instance of random shoe destruction.  We got home from our travels one afternoon (they went with us a lot, but not this given day,) and I found one of my favorite shoes in the back yard, hopelessly destroyed.  Now, it is a well known fact that Rennfield is a destroyer of footwear.  There’s a solid history there.  Angelic Quinn on the other hand has never done such a thing.  So, naturally, blame was placed and discussions were underway regarding reparations from the damage caused by their wild beast.  Meanwhile, I decided to review the security cam footage for any hard evidence.  After viewing dozens of clips, this was the only one showing any meaningful proof:

GASP!!!!  My own little boy!  The only plausible explanation is that Rennfield had chewed up the shoe inside, and Quinn was attempting to carry it to safety to prevent further destruction.  Alas, I could not find the film to support this very likely claim.  Time to buy more cameras.