The next morning we tried to stay quite while Kathleen slept in. She works late hours, and the kids are loud early-ish birds, so it was tough. We kept them quiet with some food.
While it was sunny and 60 outside, it was freezing in Kathleen's house. Mark was really suffering. He tried and tried to fix Kathleen's heater. No luck on the first attempt.
After breakfast, we remembered that the kids had a couple of packages waiting for them. Grandma had sent them some presents--two long coveted pillow pets and some spectacular fireman rain boots! Judah was in heaven.
When Kathleen woke up, the kids didn't waste any time incorporating themselves into her day to day life. Judah found a step ladder and they both fought to help her put away dishes, make tea, and cook breakfast.
After breakfast, Kathleen and I sat down for a Thanksgiving dinner planning session. I had been waiting years for this! Kathleen makes the best Thanksgiving dinners and I had always wanted to be there for one of them. We always talk and plan over the phone, but I am much to far away to actually eat any of it. This was my year!
In the mean time, the boys were still working on fixing that heater.
The next day, Kathleen and I went out to run some errands and get a drug test for my new position as Visiting Professor at DeVry. Let's keep our fingers crossed that I pass...
We spent a lot of time hanging out in Kathleen's back yard. It was a lot warmer than hanging out inside, and Judah loves doing yard work.
After a couple of days, we decided that we all probably needed a change of clothes, so we headed to Oceanside to collect clothes and other necessities. While there, we were told it would probably be a week before we would get the bounder back, so we packed the car full of a weeks worth of stuff and officially moved into Kathleen's house. On the way, Judah got to chat on the phone with his bestie, Samson. It was heartbreakingly adorable. Samson: "What are you doing?" Judah: "uh huh, yeah." Samson: "what are you doing?" Judah: "yeah, uh huh." Samson: "WHAT ARE YOU DOING???" Judah: "We are driving to our RV." It was a riveting conversation.
Besides being awesome in its own right, hanging out with Kathleen has its perks. She is a local celebrity in San Diego foodie circles, and wherever we went, people were falling over themselves to send us out fancy food. Here we got an amazing cheese tray. And we got to hang out with the adorable Trevor aka "Treven."
Whenever it came time to make food, Judah wanted to be involved. And when Judah is involved, Saywer wants to be involved. Kathleen was overwhelmed with assistants, but she found perfect jobs for them--except for when she suggested that Judah cut the broccoli with a big serrated knife and he almost cut his finger off. As she helped to clean up the blood, she explained to him the dangers of the kitchen.
After long bouts of cooking, sometimes the kids needed to just rest in bed with some Scooby Doo on netflix.
When everyone started showing up for Thanksgiving, the boys were in heaven, Kathy gave them non stop foot rides, Candice pulled up awesome games on her iphone, and Kate pinched their fat cheeks.
All the distraction was good, because there was some serious cooking going on in the kitchen.
It was an amazing spread. Turkey, mashed potatoes, mushroom and wild rice stuffing, cauliflower gratin, brussel sprouts, beets, enchilada pie, cranberry fluff, and loads of other deliciousness.
After dinner Judah was pooped. So was Kate. And Kathy wanted to snuggle in too. It was pretty sweet.
Then they asked for Beans. He wasn't thrilled about the situation.
Sawyer ended up going to sleep, but Judah didn't want to miss any of the action. He fell asleep in my lap as I sipped wine and played Apples to Apples.
The next day we met Kathy at the Zoo. She was the most amazing zoo guide a tourist could ask for. She knew the stroller routes, the most exciting trails, and the not to be missed animals. It was amazing. Judah spent most of the time pretending to be a monkey...
He really wanted to break in and live with them. Maybe I should have let him...
After a long day of fun, we went home, bundled up, and relaxed. (Mark had given up on trying to fix the heater by now.)
On Saturday, Kathleen decided to make us some pasta. Specifically, butternut squash and mushroom lasagna with a bechamel sauce. She was going to make the sauce, the pasta, and the cheese. This is her deciding over a cup of tea...
And this is her making it. She was excited about giving Judah a cooking lesson on pasta and cheese making, be he was so exhausted and fell asleep right before she began. It was sad, but it also made the process a lot easier.
Squeezing the whey out of the ricotta
Mixing in the fresh herbs.
Destroying (Mark has taken to calling him Sawyer the Destroyer--it is pretty perfect.)
Rolling out the pasta
I was enjoying eating it way too much to take any pictures of the finished product. But I am telling you, if you are going to have your RV break down and be stranded somewhere for 11 days, Kathleen's house is the place to do it. Seriously...
The next morning everyone was well fed and well rested. We hung around Kathleen's house for awhile, and then got ready to go out for lunch.
Woohoo!!! Lunch...with bloody marys!!!
But first, the day wouldn't be complete without those meddling kids...and their dog, too.
For lunch, we went to this bar/restaurant called "The Station" that had an outdoor play area for the kids. Genius, right? We ate outside, drank a bloody mary, met Sharon and her sweet baby girl, all while the kids played in a big train and drew on chalkboards.
As we wrapped up Sunday, the excitement just grew and grew...Jen and Dan were arriving the next day! We couldn't wait!
opp...I see now that it was a pillow tummy :) funny. I LOVE Kathleen's happy yellow dining room! I would want to live in that room. It sounds like you got to spend a lot of nice time with her! thanks for the posts Jen!
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