Papa meeting his newest granddaughter
Our day started out great! Emma had slept through the night for the very first time! And I mean all the way through the night; from bedtime at 8pm to 7am...woohoo! Other than that exciting event, our day pretty much centered around food. We had a nice big breakfast of eggs, bacon, toast and biscuits to hold us over until our mid-afternoon feast. We made the typical meal of turkey, mashed potatoes and gravy, yams, green bean casserole, creamy corn, stuffing, rolls, cranberry sauce and pumpkin pie (and a pumpkin cheesecake too) for dessert. I hadn't cooked the big meal in a few years, so it was nice to host the holiday at my house to be able to do some more of the cooking. Linda helped a lot too, since I also had to tend to Emma though. We cut a few recipes in half, trying not to make too much since there was only 4 (and a half if you count Evan) of us. While Thanksgiving leftovers are yummy, I didn't want to have to eat the same thing for the rest of the week! As a special treat, we had a nice bottle of bubbly with the meal too. Evan didn't eat too much this year. I think he may have had some of his green bean casserole and maybe some turkey, but he loved the bread rolls, and then of course loved the pumpkin pie for dessert too.
Emma's first Thanksgiving!
Evan loving his bread!
My cute kiddos on Thanksgiving.
The best of the family photos...Evan just wouldn't sit still.
After the big meal, I spent a bit more time in the kitchen making some holiday candies: homemade fudge and toffee. Add that to my dad's traditional peanut clusters and peanut brittle (which he brought some for us) we had a good assortment of sweet treats too. And then we ended the day by having a little Christmas on Thanksgiving, since we wouldn't be with Dad and Linda for Christmas this year. Evan loved opening his presents. I think he's been a little spoiled with gifts lately, since he got presents in August for his birthday and then there has been a pretty steady stream of gifts coming in here and there for him along with for Emma due to her birth. And just this past week he got his Christmas present from our daycare lady early too. So, he definitely knows how to open presents now, and loves it. I just hope he doesn't start to expect presents every month of the year! :O
After Evan went to bed, John and Dad snuck out to Walmart to try to get one item that was on a good Black Friday special (yes, they started Black Friday before Friday this year...geez!). Anyway, some items started Black Friday sales at 6pm, and others at other times...with the item we wanted starting at 8pm. So they got there just after 7:30pm, and low and behold they had already sold out. What the heck? Yes, they had given away wristbands earlier, then the people with those bands could come back starting at 8pm to pick up their items. What the heck? Yes, I kept saying this all night because if you say something goes on sale at a certain time, why in the world can you essentially sell it out before then? And if that's how the game is to be played, why didn't it explain that somewhere? I mean, if there was a physical line that John would have had to waited in and it was too long such that by the time he got up there they were sold out, fine. But if people could start coming in at whatever time they wanted (for all we know) and get a stupid wristband and then go do other things (probably getting other wristbands for other items) then they should have never listed that the items would go on sale at a set time. What the heck! This is just one reason why I don't like Black Friday...
Black Friday (or the day after Thanksgiving)
No crazy shopping trips for us (in fact, I have yet to do any true "Black Friday" shopping in stores...I can't bear dealing with that madness among other reasons!), rather we decided to take a drive into the mountains. Remember that we had a big flood in September? Well, that flood marooned the tourist mountain town of Estes Park from the rest of the world, leaving all of those businesses suffering not only from some flood damage, but also no business for a few months. The roads up there opened a few weeks ago, so we figured we'd spend our day after Thanksgiving holiday taking a drive up the canyons to check out the aftermath of the flooding and to also give patronage to the businesses in Estes.
We first drove up Hwy 36 through the town of Lyons (another town that was marooned due to washed out roads on all sides). There were signs from the flooding everywhere. From extra rocks and dirt debris, to trees and bushes washed flat, to some buildings and cars destroyed...the sights driving along Hwy 36 were devastating.
This poor home along Hwy 36 didn't make it.
If you look closely on the inside of the concrete "guard rail" (upper right of photo) you can see where the road used to be, given the broken edges of old pavement.
Walking the main street of Estes Park
What did Emma do this whole time? She slept of course! :) By the time we walked back to the car, I figured I better wake her and feed her before we hit the road home. John even managed to change her on his lap (he's so good at changing babies in tight spaces!). Then we hit the road home on Hwy 34 through Big Thompson canyon. There were road signs along most of it asking cars not to stop along the road, in part because of the road works still being done in places to repair the road, but also to protect personal property and privacy. The sights along this highway were equally, if not perhaps a bit more, devastating as we saw on Hwy 36. This canyon is so much steeper so the water level must have gotten really high and fast, washing away a large number of buildings and structures. Plus, there are/were a lot of homes and cabins right along the road and river in this canyon. We saw some homes that had green "inspected" signs on them, while others that had visible damage had yellow and red signs on them (which we assume could have meant they were condemned...not good either way). What I think is also sad is that the people who owned some of those destroyed properties now essentially own part of the river bed, since the river washed out the land that those homes were on, and I guess that makes it nearly impossible for them to rebuild there if they even wanted to. All along the drive I kept saying how wide I felt the river bed was now. The landscape in these canyons has been forever changed by nature's extreme power of water. I just kept feeling thankful that the fatality rate was really quite low considering the scale and magnitude of this unforgettable event.
A beautiful mountain river vista, except for that poor home that was destroyed by the flood (notice the other home next to it seems fine)
Vegetation near the river has been flattened from when the water level was much higher.
The bridge on the right now connects to nothing other than the main channel of the river now.
Massive boulders and rocks were all over in the river bed now, which while there had always been a lot of rocks, I can only imagine that most of these are newly placed by the rushing flood waters.
That large tree was just one of many very big trees taken down by the rushing water.
Examples of where the land the home was once on is now mostly part of the river bed, as what remains of the home is right on the edge of the bank.
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