Today is the end of a wonderful Thanksgiving weekend. It started last Weds. night with our Beckett Ct. Christmas Progressive Planning Party. A few glasses of wine later and I learned we have after dinner drinks this year.

Thursday morning we started our day with all 9 of us going to Arthur’s for breakfast. Ok, Danny had to work a bit, but it was a good excuse for going. It’s a rare occasion when we have all 5 kids, 1 fiance and 1 girlfriend all together in the same place. We took advantage of time by taking a couple of family pictures. One posted will be used for our holiday cards. Thanks for the help in taking the pics John.

Dinner was great. We were 21 of us gathered around the tables that you see. The food was amazing, but it was the company that made the day. We took some family pictures for Diane and Keith, as it’s rare for their entire family to be together as well.

Diane and Keith took the kids with then, so we headed out to Temecula the next morning. We hit about 6 wineries. You’ll see some of the view in the last pictures. That evening we met Tony and Judy Fiandaca at the Pechanga casino. Guy, Tony and Jim were there as well. Dinner, gambling and fun with good friends – what a life.

The next morning we headed back up to Ontario Mills and Victoria Gardens. We went to Keith and Diane’s to pick up the kids and had a delicious dinner. Diane had taken the kids shopping, laid out her entire Christmas village and had out all her decorations and lights – all done with the kid’s help. Looks like we both won out this weekend.

Today, TJ and Elyse spent the morning with Nick and Ash. Ashley needed to get her engagement ring checked as she’s had it almost a year now. TJ got the thrill of having Elyse in a store with a million engagement rings. We’ll see how long he holds out until he buys one!

Then it was time to say goodbye and Nick and Ashley flew back to Atlanta. You know that makes tomorrow, just another work day. Sigh…

Just another normal day, but if Nick posted, then I guess I have to keep up. Not a lot going on, but 2 weeks ago, John decided that the block needed to host Octoberfest. Basically this was just a good reason to get together and drink beer. The kids had a Halloween party next door. The highlight of the evening was a ride on Chris’ bus. Yes, Chris bought a short bus. It holds about 30 or so. Many of us jumped in and took a tour of the Hills, in order to pick up one of the kids. What a kick it was…but like many other events on the block, I guess you had to be there. To describe how much fun it was loses something in the translation.

The next weekend, we saw Glade and Carol on Fri. night. It was great to catch up with them as we hadn’t been together since Nick proposed to Ashley in PV, over New Year’s. We determined they hadn’t been in from the Phoenix area in over 3 years. The next night, we went into L.A. It was Joyce’s turn to hold our quarterly cousin’s get together. When we walked in, no one else had arrived yet, except Vinton’s cousin and his co-workers. Ironically, two of them were named Robin and Diane. It turned out that Diane and Keith weren’t going to show as Keith got sick. Next we found out that Denise has a flat and needed 4 new tires. She’d be a no show as well. Luckily Dale and Steve came. With Aunt Lee there, we made our own fun. Come next Feb. it will be our turn to host. Hopefully everyone will be ok by then.

This past Sat. we had dinner with Tony and Judy. I could hear Judy squeeling all the way upstairs as she saw Lani for the first time in over a year. There’s still a special place in Lani’s heart for the Fiandaca’s so she was pretty jazzed to see them as well. This weekend we’re going to see about getting Mick Fleetwood (yes, of Fleetwood Mac) to sign bottles of his wine. Then we just count down a few more days and Nick and Ash will be here for Thanksgiving. We were expecting 21, but today it sounds like Claudio, Sydney and Trevor will be joining us as well. I don’t know if we’ve ever had 24 before, but we’re going to find out if it works. Danny is really looking forward to this as he loves the house full. Only this past Sun., we had a fire in the pit in the backyard. Lynne, Steve and John had drinks with us. Bernie, TJ and Elyse came for dinner, so we were 8 around the table. It was the perfect Sunday as far as I was concerned – relaxed sharing a fire and a drink with good friends and family.

The day after Thanksgiving, Daine and Keith are taking the kids, so that we can go wine tasting with Nick and Ash. We’ll come back up to Rancho Cucamonga, only after spening the night in Temecula and visiting Pechanga. Since Tony and Judy go there often, they’re going to join us for dinner down there. They haven’t seen Nick in a few years. The next night, we’ll pick up the kids and have dinner with Diane and Keith. Should be a great start to the holidays!

Ok Nick, maybe there has been stuff going on.