"Surprise" trip to Denver

 This week was a bit of a rough week.   While traveling, Jason injured his back and became unable to walk or sit without severe pain.   This injury was probably a re-herination of his L5-S1 disc, which had partially herniated during our hiking trip this summer.   He said this time it was much worse however, and desperately needed help to get home.

So, I headed to Denver from work on Thursday and began the process of planning how to extract him from the airport hotel he was staying at.  We were able to book 2 seats each on the plane home--so he could have 3 of them to lie down for the flight.   And we booked a wheel chair from the hotel to the gate.   Only thing was, he could not sit in it.   But he did figure out a way: kneeling backwards!

The flight attendants were cool on the flight and even let him stay layaing down for take off and landing.  

Once we got to SF, I got his car and deove him home while he was laying in the backseat.   

This all made this weekend, one of the last before chirstmas, a bitr chaotic for me, as he was unable to do ANYTHING.   I did my best to continue to get the work done, including baking a bunch of Christmas cookies, buying presents, wrapping presents, and generally keeping things organzied.  Luckily, Alaina was a good helper, and due to the fact that we had a huge raistorm, softball was cancelled, as was one of her basketball games due to a power outage.

So, we will see what happens.  Jason seems to be getting ever so slightly better each day, so fingers crossed he will at least be able to walk and or/sit a bit more soon!

Jason's Birthday

 This week, Jason celebrated birthday #47!  His birthday was on Thursday, and he chose homade pizza for dinner, as crab season is delayed again this year.   My dad was able to join us, which was nice.  He also chose a carrot cake for dessert, which he loved but everyone else politely picked at.   He will have a lot of leftover cake to eat himself!

 

Over the weekend, Jason wanted to go to Tahoe, but on Friday night Ethan had a holdiay concert, so we could not leave on Friday.  His motivation to go dropped on Saturnday morning, and so instead we enjoyed a weekend at home.   We had planned to cut down a Christmas tree in Tahoe, but instead headed up to a Christmas tree farm in Sonoma, where we cut a tree for a much higher price :).  Alaina did most of the cutting!

On the way back we stopped for brunch at our favorite brunch place in Petaluma, Sax's joint.   

And then we came home and decotrated the tree!

And since we stayed in town, Alaina got to go to her holiday softball party.  They do a white elephant exchange and she was excited to get Squishamellows as her gift this year!

Thanksgiving at Sea

 This year for Thanksgiving, we did something different.   We took a cruise along Western Mexico for the week that the kids were off school.   We did this because we wanted to do something with Jason's dad to celebrate his 80th birthday this fall--and a cruise was what he wanted to do.  Eileen and him take this cruise route fairly often, and they were excited to do it with us.   Jason's brothers Brandon and Jeremy both joined for the week, so we had the opportunity for a lot of family time.   Plus, no one had to cook or clean up!

We left from Los Angeles on Saturday morning.   The cruise stopped at 3 ports: Cabo San Lucas, Matzalan, and Puetro Vallarta.   Plus 3 full days at sea, including Thanksgiving Day.

In Cabo, we took a water taxi to Lover's Beach with Jeremy, where we went swimming.

In Matzalan, we decided to venture out to El Quelite, a small colonial town about an hour north of the city.   The rest of Jason's family did not join us--but we had a deliciaious lunch at a really unique restaruant called El Meson De Los Laureanos, and after we stopped at a Tequilla Distillery on the way back to the boat.   Unfortuantely, our Uber Driver got a flat tire along the way, but luckily one of the workers drove us back so we did not miss the ship in the afternoon.

Puerto Vallarta was the prettiest stop.  Here, we went to another beach, and then met Jason's family for lunch at a restaurant called Pipi's (yes, the name of Alaina's rabbit ha ha!).

  

Thanksgiving dinner was definitely not as delicious as a homeade meal would have been, but overall it was not too bad.

The sunsets were beautiful!

We returned on Saturday and headed back to the Bay Area.   A good change of scenery.