Your Royall Blogness: A Long November

Jess had back to back jobs for the month of November that turned out to be brutal. He was often leaving before B and I woke up and coming home after we were in bed. We were missing our daddy!!

Luckily these two jobs were broken up by a trip to Las Vegas, 2 birthday parties, and Thanksgiving!

VEGAS:

We met my parents for, what we think is the, 7th Annual Vegas Trip. We stayed at Paris, and had a great time! We left early Friday morning. B slept all the way to Victorville for our traditional Sonic stop.

Driving the stick!

She demolished the corn dog.

We got to Paris around 2 and waited for judea and the shark to arrive. We headed straight to the burger bar for some dinner!

Yours truly answered the trivia question right for 10% off the meal.

Question: Who was the only player in the NBA to earn Rookie of the Year and MVP honors in the same year?

Answer in the comments. We will see if you are as smart as me. (wink face)

I did not get any good shots of the grandparents with B. We did a lot of lounging in the room, watching football, and trading off Breckin so we could go down and gamble in pairs. And gamble did we ever!! We couldn't lose on this trip!

On Sunday, Jess and I took the advice of an LA mom friend who told us to go to the new Container Park at the end of the Old Strip. It was so cool! It was an enclosed park that had a humongous, fenced in play structure, picnic tables, grassy knoll w/ stage and 2 levels of shipping containers surrounding the perimeter. in each shipping container was either a cute shop or food. You could order from any of the restaurants (that also had beer!), sit anywhere you wanted in the park, and they brought you your food. It was not crowded, did not feel vegas-y, and it seemed like a locals attraction. We hit the jack pot with this place! (pun intended) We want to stay in Old Vegas next year just b/c of this place!

We had a nice, french dinner out one night. B had escargot!

I tell ya, we were HOT! I had to take this pic and send it to jess to show him all the numbers we were hitting! I think it went 16 times in a row before a number hit that dad and I did not make money on. It was UNREAL! 25 (jess's birthday) had just hit twice in a row! Dad kept saying how crazy grandma Edna Mae would be going. Roulette was her game.

Dad got GOLD chips at the table. I had never seen golds so I had to take a picture. They are worth $1000. Whoa! We left early Sunday morning b/c jess had to prepare for his next grueling job that started Monday. We love our annual vegas trip!

BIRTHDAYS:

Thankfully 3 of my lady friends were born this month, so we got to celebrate a little.

the birthday girls in their floral jumpsuits

KC and Natalie are born a day apart, so they had a joint birthday. It was real fancy. They rented a pool side cabana at the Viceroy in Santa Monica which is celebrity-like. I did not get many pics. But let's just say I am surprised nobody fell in the pool by night's end.

The following weekend we headed up to Topanga to celebrate Mel's birthday. It was a beautiful day, at a beautiful house in the mountains. I love Topanga.

I mean, this view.

gold hat, gold shoes

Besties

weirdos

the birthday girl! She was so surprised!

My daydreamer

THANKSGIVING:

And Finally, we made it to Thanksgiving. 4 long days of just hanging out with my family of 3 and close friends. It was magnificent.

We had no Susie (Nat's mom) to do most of the cooking (we have been spoiled!), so everyone had to step it up a notch. I took on homemade stuffing, mashed potatoes and deviled eggs.

Ready to go to the Charbs! She insisted on wearing her ladybug backpack that pop and gag got her in vegas.

Once we got there, it was a lot of playtime with the kids (Isla, Breckin and Wilder), drinking and final food preparations.

I love Alice's face in this photo (the dog)

Breckin was stealing Isla's food!

future artist

I had never seen so much food in my life. Everything from gumbo to Lasagna with traditional stuff in between. Whoa. We capped off the evening with way too much dessert and an egg nog. We rolled ourselves home and hit the hay early.

We lounged, watched football, took walks, went to the boardwalk, watched christmas movies (B made it all the way through Home Alone AND laughed at the funny parts!), did honey-dos and yard work the rest of the weekend. It was a recharge the whole family needed.