Thanksgiving Week in Boise: Day 1 & 2

Well,
the big day is just one day away now.
So I figure I better blog about Thanksgiving before Christmas happens.
So here goes...

We had a flight to Boise that left the Monday before Thanksgiving.
We left Ontario at 3pm, and flew to Phoenix.

All went pretty well.
It was funny that seated right behind us on the plane was a mom that I recognized from seeing at the girls school.  Her son is older than Hannah so she didn't know him, but they were very nice and I am always surprised when things like that happen and at how small this world seems sometimes.
Only glitch was that our first flight ran late.  We landed in Phoenix at 5:58pm, and our connecting flight left Phoenix for Boise at 6:02pm.  Everyone on the flight was worried about missing their connections, but we were told that the next flights knew we were late, and just to get there as quickly as we could.  So just imagine this if you will, Mr. H and I trying to tell our girls, "Ok, as soon as we get off we have to RUN!!  Carry your own backpacks, and RUN!!!"  And of course our next flight was so far away from where this one came in.  Mr. H had Hannah by the hand and I had Claire, and we were running through terminals, pulling the girls behind us, running past people on the moving walkway, trying to say excuse me as we passed, and as we were running , we heard the announcement "Last call for Hass party of 4 to Boise, last call for HASS... party of 4..."

Gulp.  For a quick second I panicked and thought about what a nightmare it would be if we really did miss our flight and had to find somewhere to stay the night in Phoenix.
But Mr. Hass left the girls with me and sprinted ahead of us to get them to hold our plane.
And as he ran away, us girls were kept running behind him (with carry ons and backpacks flapping in our wake), Claire starts to cry and scream "DADDY!!" "Daddy, WAIT!!! Daddy don't LEAVE us!!!"

The poor girl.  Maybe she really thought that he might hop on that plane without us.

In the end, it all worked out.  
Mr. H arrived at the gate just as they were closing the doors!
And Hannah slid in right behind him on her knees (Home Alone style) shouting "We're HERE! Don't leave! DID WE MAKE IT???!!!"
Everyone got a good laugh out of that.
After boarding the plane, we sat on the ground for a half hour before the pilot announced his apologies for the delay, and that we were still just waiting for the last 4 bags to make it to the plane before we can take off.
That's when Mr. H and I slouched down lower in our seats, hoping to avoid the stink eye from the rest of the people on our flight.  
So I guess it wound up being a lucky night for the Hass family.
Lucky that we made the connecting flight, and also lucky that our luggage made it safely to Boise as well.
Phew.

We arrived close to 9pm and my mother in law Diane was ready and waiting for us right outside the airport.
Once we were in the car on the way to her house, the heater was running full blast because it was 20 something degrees out, and Hannah sniffs around and asks "What's that weird burning smell?"
We were laughing as we explained that was the heater in the car.  I guess she's not really used to that where we're from.  ;)

The girls didn't quite sleep in like we had hoped the next morning.
But that's ok.
They ran right outside into the backyard to check out the frost on the grass and to giggle about being able to see their breath.
After breakfast we got dressed and headed out for some adventuring with Diane.

First we stopped in at the Audiology Center where Diane works to check it out and say hello.  She showed me the really neat sound proof room inside and I said I sure wished houses came with one of those.  I'd love a sound proof room somewhere in my house to just go hide in those moments of craziness with the crazies!  Maybe have a glass of wine, and then come out when I'm good and ready.  Hahaha.  

Right around the corner from her work is the first house that Mr. H and I ever had together.  So of course we had to go stop by and see it.  It's been 10 years since that was our home.  It was such a cute little place and it was fun to go see it again.

Next stop was the Boise Town Square Mall.  Diane had been wanting to re pierce her ears a little higher, and we thought that would be a good time for the girls to watch her and see that it's no big deal, and for them to get theirs done too.  They've both had them pierced before but they've let them close up.

Hannah was very brave and couldn't wait to get it done.

She got a little nervous, but Dad held onto her hand and she did great.

She was so happy.  Grandma even bought her another pair to wear after she can change them out.  

Claire Bear decided she'd pass on the piercing.  So she picked out a bear and a Sophia doll.  So very Claire.  :)

After leaving the mall we headed into downtown to roam.  First stop was lunch at a little brewery called Bittercreek Ale House.

It was a neat place.  Fun atmosphere.  Food was just so so.  Maybe a better place to go for beer.  ;)

We popped into The Chocolat Bar and that sure was fun.  We each got a truffle to enjoy.

Then Diane took us to BSU so we could check out the stadium and show the girls the broncos blue turf.

If you've been reading my blog for any amount of time, you know that Mr. H is the biggest BSU fan.  I think it was almost painful for him to be that close to the field and not get to see a game.  They were playing that Saturday too but we had to fly out on Friday.  Sorry Mr. H!

 After checking out the blue turf, we walked around inside and got to take an up close look at the Fiesta Bowl trophy from 2007.

 Such a big game for Boise State against Oklahoma, and so exciting that we were there!!! Mr. H often says things to me like, "You know that game will go down in history as the best college football game EVER.  You know that right?"  
Yes honey, I know that.  :)

After that we left BSU and headed back to Diane's.  It was getting cooler and darker, and we had to stop at the store and pick up a few things for dessert because we were having some old friends stop by for a visit after dinner and we couldn't wait to see them.
Mr. H's friend Dale from pharmacy school and his wife Molly live in Boise and we have kept in touch with them over the years.  We've even had a couple of fun trips where we met up with them different places, but it had been a while this time.  Their beautiful girls are both just months apart from our own girls ages too so it was really fun.

After Mr. H and I started dating and I began to meet some of his friends, Molly was one of the first girls that I got to know and I have always really liked her.  I remember sitting next to Molly at Mr. H's pharmacy promotion/dinner just days before his graduation. We watched Jake and Dale accept their copies of the parmacist's oath that night.  It's crazy to think of how much we've all grown and changed since then.  We had such a fun time catching up with them, and our girls played so incredibly well while we visited.

Claire and Noel became fast friends.
Such fun on our first day.
I'll be back with the rest of our trip soon.
For now I'll leave ya with this little bit of Thanksgiving humor...

Is that not hilarious???
I am still laughing.

Today. And that Old Elf of Ours.

We found Oscar in the bathroom taking a marshmallow bubble bath one morning last week.

 The girls got a kick out of that one!

 And I get a kick out of all the great ideas on pinterest that have to do with the elf.  ;)

 Oscar wrote a message on their bathroom mirror one morning.

Don't look too closely or you will notice how filthy their mirror is.

You try living with a Crazy Claire and see if you can keep your bathroom clean.

The countertops you might notice are also pretty bare except for that lone bottle of baby lotion.  That is also because of Crazy Claire.  Left to her own devices she creates big problems with items she can find in the bathroom.  Therefore, there are NO more items in that bathroom. 

Ha.  I win Claire.  I win.

So today...

here is a little sneak preview of my wiww photo shoot...

About that,

I can't take wiww pictures of myself without these girls wanting to jump in and show their outfits too. 

Like mother like daughter perhaps?

Look at em.  I think they are even fighting for the lime light here.

This morning we dropped Claire off at Gamma's house to play while Hannah and I went to Mom's Morning at her pre school.

They have it set up where you create a different craft in every classroom, professional mommy and me photos in one room, and I even got to hug and meet a fellow blogger that I bumped into for the first time today.  Fun to meet you Shalyn!

Hannah has been coming home with so many new art pieces lately that we have been taping a few favorites to the garage door.

 The nativity scene was one she did today at moms morning.  and my favorite piece on there is the hand written note.  Can you read it?

The note on the top right she tried to write out  in red crayon I have to go to the park.  So cute.  And the black art masterpiece was one she did in school one day for Claire.  She wrote "CIALRE" and was soooo excited to give it to Claire when we picked her up from school.  Claire was so pleased.  It was really really cute.

I know this picture is blurry but I like it anyway.

Mr. Hass came home from work and went straight upstairs to change into his game day gear.

It's BSU's bowl game tonight.

Are you watching?

It's Kellen Moore's last college football game of his career.

It's a big day.

Kellen is Mr. Hass' college football man crush, in case you didn't know.

I'm okay with it.

Especially because Mr. H came home with fresh sub sandwhiches and a salad from a great hole in the wall deli place behind the hospital where he works for dinner.

 the girls had pb jamz.

no deli for them. 

but really what they ate was a snickerdoodle and marshmallows.
nice.

 Yum.

I'm stuffed but looking at this picture makes me hungry again.

 After dinner I finished up the last of my Christmas wrapping.

We baked some sweet treats for my sweet Nana tonight too.

My sidekick Claire kept me company while I wrapped.

She was happy playing with her new Lego toys and Bullseye and Jesse that she received in the mail today from Uncle Dusty & Aunt Karen.

Hannah was busy playing with her new legos from Uncle Dusty and Aunt Karen too.  Thanks guys, they LOVED their gifts!!!

I've set the gifts to bring to my Mom's and my Aunt & Uncles house beneath the small tree.  It doesn't look like much in this picture but there's a bunch of good stuff under there.

Just two more days now.

Are you ready?

I've got to go to Sam's Club tomorrow.

Hope it's not crazy.

Tomorrow night I am hosting an enchilada making party at my house.

We are eating enchilada's at my parents house on Christmas Eve, but we are going to make TONS of them and freeze several trays too.

It's gonna be a good time.

I better run now.

Have to wash my hair.

Have to put away allllll of the loads of laundry on my bed.

and then...

have to watch the season finale episode of Homeland.

I'm SO excited to watch it.

I'll try to make it round to everyone's blogs tomorrow!!!

Sorry if I have been absent.

You know, holiday crash and burn craziness.

We're all in it.

**MERRY CHRISTMAS**

Part One of our FUN Weekend Getaway...

Hi.

How was your weekend?

Mine was good.

I'd say great.

Any guesses on where Mr. Hass and I went?

 I'll give you a clue...

but before I get to that...

let me tell you a story.

A story about my older cousin Don.

I just loooove giving my cousin Don a hard time about things.

But don't feel bad for him.

He does it to me too.

I can't eat around him without him stealing food off my plate.

His wife Kaylen gave him a super reach retractable fork one year as a joke.  I think she got it at Restoration Hardware.

We love to joke around in my family.

Recently on facebook Kaylen posted this picture of Don's starbuck's cup and wrote "And my husband thought having his name spelled 'Dawn' was bad."

Dong.

bahahahahahahahahaha.

Dong?

I mean really, how do you hear Dong?

Right away my wheels started turning with this one.

You see,

Don and Kaylen were scheduled to be flying into Ontairo Airport on Friday night and Mr. H and I were picking them up.

Dong.

Immediately I envisioned a huge poster board.

BIG bold letters spelling out Mr. & Mrs. DONG Fink.

Oh yes, because that is what people looking for someone at the airport do right?

They make a sign.

And they hold it up.

So that is just what I did.

 Look at that man staring at me.

Wonder what he was thinking.

Ha!

I waited in position with my sign,

Mr. Hass was ready with my camera,

and then,

we saw them.

 So I jumped up and down and waved my bright neon yellow sign,

shouting "Dong! Dong! Over here!"

 He was a good sport.

We all had a good laugh.

And then we let him make us breakfast Saturday morning. ;)

 We were up bright and early (because our girls let no one sleep around here) so we had plenty of time to mingle a bit, have a nice breakfast, play with the girls, and then we got serious and put our game faces on.

 My parents were so kind to watch the girls overnight,

and we took off towards San Diego for the BSU vs. SDSU game!!!!

I was a bit worried about the weather.

I did not want to be sitting in the pouring rain watching football, but we got lucky and it stayed dry all day and night.

On the way down we stopped to eat at Stone Brewery.

Mr. Hass said to me, "You know how Nordstrom is your happy place? Well, I think Stone and a bsu football game is my happy place."  He was in a good mood.  Perhaps a good time to talk to him about the new lens I've been wanting?  ;)

Mr. Hass and Dong oh, I mean Don (hahaha) have been to Stone before but Kaylen and I had not.

What a gorgeous place it is.

The grounds are just beautiful.

Even though it was quite chilly, we ate outside and with the heaters cranked up it was just perfect.

 Fresh air.

Freshly brewed beer.

 Lunch was amazing, and I think everyone agreed that my pasta was the best.

I am so glad I went with my first choice because it was to die for.

It was a wild mushroom penne pasta with fried leeks in a parmesan cream sauce.

 Oh. my. holy. mushrooms and leeks.

I was so sad to leave my leftovers behind.

Don and Mr. H both got the mac n cheese with sausage.

Last time Mr. H said it was the best mac he's ever had.

This time they said it wasn't as phenomenal.

Good, but just tasted different.

 Kaylen had sheperd's pie.

She said it was good but not as good as the rest of ours.

I think everyone was jealous of my mushrooms. ;)

Kaylen and I also shared an organic fresh green garden salad that was very good.

 After lunch we decided we didn't have time to tour the brewery so Mr. H did the next best thing, and had his and my Dad's growlers filled up to take home.

You are supposed to be looking at the growlers ladies.
;)

We also had a bit of time to walk around and enjoy the beautiful ambience a bit.

I like it when Kaylen's around because she's not afraid to just grab my camera (she's pretty good) so I get to be in some non self timer shots.

Don just loooooves getting his pictures taken.

Like I mean he loooooves it.

(Tell me you can sense the sarcasm there my friends.)

 The funny thing is,

it's like pulling teeth when Kaylen wants a picture with him,

but if I want a picture with my Mr...

 he just can't wait to jump in and smile.

Huh.

Funny.

;)

 Like my new sneaks?

They're Vans from Kohl's.

I haven't bought Vans in years.

Am I too old to wear Vans?

Tell me no.

 The guys started talking to another fella who said he moved to Boise a year ago and is home for Thanksgiving.

There were quite a few people wearing bsu gear at Stone that day.  Fun to see all the team spirit.

 Isn't this such a pretty picture of Kaylen?

 There are so many places for a pretty photo opp at Stone.

Dong(g) was just lovin' it. (wink wink)

After lunch we had time to check into the hotel before heading to the game.

 Don hooked us up with free rooms at The Hilton.

He has recently been traveling quite a bit for work and had built up some credit.

Lucky us!

 If you've never been to the Gaslamp district in San Diego you must go sometime.  It's a really neat place.  Lots to see and do.

And the bathrooms are stocked with PTR at The Hilton!

Peter Thomas Roth is a very nice professional skin care line.

I was pretty excited about the PTR in the bathroom.

And I don't know how many times Mr. Hass said,

"Ooooh look, PTR.  Oh I am so excited about the PTR."

haha. 

After we freshened up,

added more blue and orange to our bodies,

put bsu stickers on our faces,

we were ready to head to the game.

 lots of pretty sights along the way.

 blurry Qualcomm picture.

There was 52,000 something in attendance.  The highest number for a SDSU game since 1991.

It must have been all the bronco fans in the stadium!

We had a quick beverage and a toast in the parking lot before heading in.

 We posed for a picture, and then found our seats.

 which were not bad at all.

(cell phone pics, sorry kinda noisy and blurry)

There was a lot of orange hair in the stands.

Lots of team spirit.

These guys got to move to the very front because they had so much team spirit...

What a fun game.

I love the excitement of rooting for your team.

And so what if I don't understand all of the rules of football.

I clapped when everyone else clapped.

I made noise when the cheerleaders held up their sign to make noise.

And just for fun at random moments I liked to yell out a bit of football terminology that I have learned since being married to Mr. Hass, such as

"Horsecollar!!!"

or

"Facemask!"

or

"Incomplete pass!!!!"

And then my hands got cold, so Mr. Hass bought me some hot chocolate.

Fun times!!!

I know this next picture is blurry, Kaylen took it for me with her iphone (my phone and point and shoot had died) and I had to get a picture of this. 

 Ever since Mr. Hass bought our tickets for this game, he has talked about how he can't wait to high five all the players at the end of the game.  After every game bsu does this.  It's not something other teams do.  It's just their thing.  They thank the fans for coming, and walk the entire stadium giving out high fives.  Mr. H said that when Kellen Moore high fives his hand he's never washing it again. Poor guy didn't get to shake Kellen's cause he was doing an interview, but he did get to shake Coach Pete's (even better!) and Billy Winn, and they both said to him "thanks for coming out".  I was so happy for him getting to do that.  What a great way to end the game.

Mr. H tweeted this picture (to his fellow bsu loving followers) with a tag line that said "Sunny San Diego".

Check back soon to find out what went down after the game.

Downtown San Diego on a Saturday night gets all kinds of crazy.