Sunday visits

We've developed a little tradition of visiting Mom as a family each Sunday evening. She seems to love the visit and look forward to it — especially seeing Matt and Sarah (when she can join us). It's amazing how much these visits from her grandchildren brighten her mood. When I visit alone, she often seems unwilling to try to "perk up." But with the younger visitors, she usually immediately brightens and gets more alert and conversational.

Happy with her visitors. Note how she is "latched on" to Sarah!

A little "horseplay" between siblings as we leave the Seville...

Post-Thanksgiving Dinner

We have been planning this week to have Friday dinner at Los Hermanos, since Matt was scheduled to work and we have never been in when he was serving. Ale and Adam planned to go with us, and then we picked up Sarah and Brian. Kind of at the last minute, the party expanded to include Brian's family from Redlands, who were up here for the holiday! We had a delightful time getting to know Craig and Melinda, and their sons. Matt did a great job as our waiter, earning a nice tip.

The "guests of honor" — do they look like heavy drinkers??

Part of the Wright family just as we were finishing up dinner.

Thanksgiving Day, 2008

For a while, we thought we might have only the 4 of us for Thanksgiving dinner today. But we were able to convince Mom to come over, then Sarah convinced Brian to come, and then Julie & Alex were able to join us. So we had a nice group of 8 to celebrate together!

As always, Bonnie did a remarkable job with the turkey dinner. It was delicious!

It was especially fun to have Brian with us much of yesterday and today.

Matt did his best to consume prodigious quantities of protein.

Mom endured pretty well, but was eager to get home for her nap.

Happy Birthday Andrew

We had a nice visit with Adam, Alessandra, and Andrew this evening. Andrew had his 1st birthday last week, and Ale's is coming up next week. It was fun to celebrate with them!

Enjoying birthday cake

Alessandra is a sweet mother.

A happy family moment (I'm never in any photos)