A Very Jiggely Thanksgiving

Really, this was the best Thanksgiving holiday we have had in years, maybe ever. Not that Thanksgiving is ever that spectacular, but you know…this one was nice.

Many of you know I make Jell-O for Thanksgiving. I make Brad’s Mom’s Rainbow Jell-O. The first time I saw it, I knew I would make it every Thanksgiving for the rest of my life.

This year I blew my previous record for layers of Jell-O (10, including cool whip) out of the water. This year I created an engineering masterpiece. A 17 layered Jell-O. It was a show stopper. Everyone loved it, but no one more than me. I do tend to laugh at my own jokes…tacky, I know, but I’m funny and I can’t help it. Plus if you can’t count on yourself to be proud of your best work, who can you count on?

Not only did it look spectacular, it tasted fan-freaking-tastic. What flavors did I use. Basically every flavor that wasn’t green or blue. (They don’t look as pretty) Wal-Mart carries a better selection of flavors, especially around the holidays. Highlights included, Apricot, Cranberry, Pineapple.


Before my 17 layer Jell-O made its debut, we held the first annual Wardle Family Cold Turkey Thanksgiving Run. I won.
You can see from these pictures I had some pretty serious competition.

Clearly, I was ahead of those pushing strollers, and runners wearing jeans and a sweat-band.

I was behind some of the younger children and my genius brothers who were all trying to beat my winning-est and most competitive brother Jason.

My brothers (who don't run) were running at about an 8 minute mile pace only made it one mile and then vomited in my parents driveway. I mentioned that I won the race, that was because I was the only one who finished the three mile race. Everyone else ran one mile and quit. Steve ran pushing our girls in the double stroller and finished in around 10 minutes. Not bad.

We took our first feast with my family at my brothers haunted church house. We have done this before and it was sort of miserable. No heat cold food, just not great.

This time it was wonderful with a warm church, hot food, pretty tables and good company. We dined with the Wardle’s my sister-in-law’s family the Trussell’s and my other sister-in-laws the Vega’s. Plus, Amy and Luke.


The kids ate at their own table. Did you hear what I said…the kids ATE. My kids. Ate food. They don’t much care for food my kids. But they ate, without constant prompting. I had a pleasant meal. It was a Thanksgiving miracle.


Directly after that meal we headed off to the Sokol’s for our second feast. I took an identical Jell-O which looked like this on the table.


Again, the Jell-O a huge hit.

We stuck around after dinner and talked while the kids played with cousins.

Sunny pleasured us with a 30 minute piano concerto. She really sat there for almost 30 minutes and softly plinked on the keys. Do we have a child protege on our hands? I think so.

Long suffering, an underrated virtue

Not to get all churchy-churchy, but we were reading an enlightening article the other day that mentioned long suffering and it struck me. Long suffering is so underrated.

I mean who wants to suffer, not me. Who wants to suffer long, me either. But what if it’s the only way?

It seems a little nuts, but having been someone who has and does suffer long, I am starting to see it as really important when it comes to developing personal character, achievement and appreciation.

I’m not sure if I am making a connection with anyone one this, but… If I am writing this only for myself I’d say…All the suffering I knew I didn’t deserve, that was plain uncalled for in my life, led me to places I could have never found otherwise. Places that now are personal paradises for me. It was all worth it in the end.

I feel like I have a lot more to say on this topic, but…I’m not going to.

I will say this. If you are, or have ever suffered long, just know that it will probably take you places you can’t get to any other way. You’ll be glad you endured it when you get to your final destination.

This is a little weird, sorry.

Is it over already???

For day five, we went to Santa Monica Saturday morning to eat at our favorite place, Wahoo’s. If you ever go to Southern California be sure to find a Wahoo’s and eat there. Get a #10, you won’t be disappointed.

We walked through the streets on the third street promenade and watched a bunch of street performers and enjoyed the dinosaur shaped hedges.

Notice Alyssa's pose here. I after five days of me forcing her to be in pictures, she was finally cool with it and got creative.

We love Santa Monica because it truly is a melting pot. You see every kind of person there. Every race, and every class. You see super rich California couples and big huge homeless men as pictured here sitting behind my darling daughter.

We also went to the Santa Monica pier. Steve and I had our first date here. What a difference five years can make. Look at us now.


We headed down to the beach and let Sunny roll around in the dirt while Alyssa slept in the stroller. She got mad because we wouldn’t buy her each and everything she requested that she saw for sale and sulked in the stroller until she fell asleep.



We had a fun time in Santa Monica.

We headed back to Orange county on what ended up being a very very long, painful and sticky (thanks to the suckers) drive. I hate California Traffic. It’s like perpetually being on old-school 13400 South before it was upgraded.

We ate with the Davies at El Cholo, a Sokol family tradition.

Day six:
My favorite thing last time we were in California was going to Balboa and renting a Surrey bike car. So we did it again.

It was really windy, so we weren’t sure it would really work, but we ended up having a great time.

Sunny rode in the Snuggli loosened up so she could stand on the seat between me and Steve. We explored the beach houses and the peninsula. The waves were huge since it was so windy. We had a great time and took some really fun pics.



After the beach car we headed back to Trader Joe’s for some more organic snacks. Being in California, it gets to you. You have to go organic.

Then to the airport where we chowed-down on our snacks and waited and waited and waited for our flight. Health food is very important to both me and Steve. Here we are eating our healthy organic Creme Brulee.


Once we boarded Sunny transformed from a cute little Sunny Bunny into some kind of wild animal child. She was as bad as a baby could be on this flight. She screamed like a little banshee because we wouldn’t let her jump on the tray tables or have Alyssa’ milk when she had her own identical milk she wouldn’t touch.

At last it was over and we were home.

It was freezing. We collected our bags and rode the shuttle back to the car where it was snowing. For real, it was snowing. We were relived to be home even if it wasn’t warm here.

There is nothing like coming home after a long vacation. Our house seemed so big. We each had our own space. It was wonderful. We love vacations and we love coming home!

Next up, traversing across the Alps from Chamonix to Zermatt! Anyone interested?

Living the dream....still

Since I don't want to leave you hanging on the last few days of our vacation...here is some more of what we did while we were living the dream.

Back to Disneyland the day two of our two day pass. We intended to get there as the park opened, but we were to ty-ty to get up with 6 am rolled around. We ended up showing up at Disneyland two hours after it opened at 10am (sorry Charlie, I know this is unacceptable).

While we were driving to the park there were all kinds of signs saying, “Disneyland is very busy, expect delays.” Because we inadvertently planned our vacation over both UEA and Gay Days, we were nervous that it would be crowed, and from the signs, it looked like our fears would be a reality.

When we got into the park, there were defiantly more people there, but the lines were almost non-existent. We only waited 15 minutes to see Tinkerbell where we waited hours on Wednesday to see the princesses.

We went in the haunted mansion, toured Sleeping beauty’s castle, rode Pooh’s ride then headed over to a Bug’s Land and all over California Adventure.



We met up with my brothers families and went on Sorin over California together. That was a highlight for me.

This is what it looked like when we met up. 23 in our group, mostly little kids. Tons of strollers.

We spent some time together and went to the adventure trail and met Brother Bear. Sunny loved seeing them and had tons of fun with them. She asked this one to marry her.

We ate what was left of our snacks and headed over to stake out some prime real estate for parade viewing. We saw the Pixar Play Parade again where we ended up sitting next to a trash can. The guy on the other side of the trash can who heard us bragging about our spot next to the garbage, said I prefer to emphasize the proximity to the waterfall. It was funny.

After the play parade, we headed to the Street Party Parade at Disneyland. We found a really great spot and staked it out. Then we noticed my brothers family’s across the way and in true grass-is-greener form, we moved over there, only to move a third fourth and fifth time, again because the grass seemed so much greener in these other locations. We finally backed our selves literally into a corner and missed the parade completely. Frustrating.

The park got so crowded in the evening. I mean it was litterly packed. Shoulder to shoulder. We tried to get out of the crowd, but we never could shake it after the parade.

We rode a few more things, the Nemo Subs and the tea-cups and Small world. Then we headed over to the lake to watch Fantasmic. It was literally standing room only and our kids were completely off their rockers and this point. We stuck it out for the show though. Steve assured me that it would be worth it.



I held Sunny who was beside herself waiting in a crowd for the show to start. Once the show started she was better and it was one of the most amazing things I have ever seen and I could only see about 40 percent of what was happening. They really should follow the short people in the front rule there. It was still cool though.

After that, we had to get SAM HILL out of there. We were DONE! (Sorry Charlie) Problem though, the streets were packed with people waiting for fireworks. Since we had already seen them, we were so not interested in seeing them again, especially since they made Alyssa cry.

We followed the traffic controllers who were directing people who wanted the SAM HILL OUT to file back stage and out of the park. So we got a tour of what Disneyland looks like backstage. Jealous? Would you like to know what it looks like? It’s disgusting, and smells like trash. It was cool to see the difference. Alyssa started to cry because we told her she could pick out a prize before we left and she could clearly tell she was no longer in Disneyland anymore and did not get her promised prize.

We re-entered what we all know as Disneyland at the front of the park, right by a gift shop where Alyssa got to pick her prize. Do you know what she picked….out of everything in the whole store….a two dollar key chain with princesses on it. Really?!? A keychain? Alrighty then.

With that, we headed back to the car where on the tram back to the parking lot Alyssa told us she was NOT TIRED and had not seen anything and wanted to ride more rides. Crazy kid.

Once in the car she promptly fell asleep and did not wake up till morning. She slept through all the transfers and clothes changes. So she most defiantly was tired and had ridden EVERYTHING, several times.

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The scariest Jack-O's in town!

We had all the kids scared to death when they approached our house and saw these babies a glow on the porch.

Okay, no one was scared, but we did get a lot of comments.

The favorite seemed to be the Hello Kitty one.


The princess what much more difficult to carve and I wasn’t sure I could really pull it off once I started it. In the end, it turned out okay.


Special thanks to Russ E. who gave me a lesson in Pumpkin Carving two years ago. My skill has improved greatly since then.

Alyssa absolutely hated carving these bad boys. She was so offended by the smell and the feel of the pumpkin innards. This picture is totally staged. It’s probably the only time she had her hand in the pumpkin.
Her attitude changed after they were all carved up, then, she absolutely loved it and claimed ownership of the Hello Kitty.

Sunny love the "gumpkins" as she called them. She love everything about them, including eating the guts and seeds. She thought they were delicious.


They looked so cute in their costumes.


I put make-up on Alyssa for the first time. She loved it, saying… “look mom now my face is painted the same color as yours!”


Sunny enjoyed dressing up too as long as it meant having unlimited access to candy, namely suckers.

I dressed up as myself from five years ago on August 13, 2004 (minus the while long sleeve undershirt)


My girls thought I was Cinderella as did all the children who came to the door. My dress filled the entire entry way. I love that dress. It’s a shame their aren’t more places to wear it. Also, it’s a shame that I can’t really move around in it.

All in all we had a really fun Halloween.