Thanksgiving 2007

Thanksgiving was a lot of fun this year. Luckily enough for us, the whole Cottrell Family came to California to visit us. It sure was nice not having to make that long 11 hour drive to Salt Lake. My Mom rented a house in Santa Barbara (picture above). The girls and kids arrived last Sunday the 18th and Jackie made Taco Soup for everyone that was amazing and then we headed up to SB. Cory and Dallas arrived late Tuesday night and I picked them up at the airport and we got up to SB really late. Wednesday we spent the day hanging out around the house and we went to the Zoo in the afternoon. Thursday was Thanksgiving and we had a great dinner. Friday we went horseback riding and my behind is still hurting. It was a lot of fun and it had some great views. No one had any major problems with the horses. At the very end Jackie's and July's horses got spooked by a hiker, but they were able to keep the horses from running away. A group of us went up to Solvang to do some shopping. Mom found some great Christmas ornaments and she had a great time up there. We were all exhausted that night and I think everyone was in bed by nine that night. Saturday was the Utah-BYU game and we won't mention the outcome..... After the game we went down by the coast and rented a six person bike. Cayman and Mom probably had the most fun since they didn't have to do any pedaling. We spent the evening on the Pier and Cory, July, Cayman, and Jackie went on a "Pirate" boat ride while the rest of us did some shopping. We finished the evening talking until late, and then bright and early this morning we set off for the airport. It was sad to see everyone go, but we had a lot of fun. Thank you to Mom for putting it all together and for everyone coming. We love you guys. Below is a lot of pictures from this weekend. Mom and Jackie overlooking the ocean in a neighborhood called Hope Ranch.
At the beach
Just chilling in the house.
The Scary Pirate Boat Ride

Horseback riding, Dallas, Candice, and Danny the guide.
Jackie, July, and Cory
Me and Bucksnorkle, what a great horse
Up in Solvang
In N Out, had to make the stop

Cayman ringing the bell on the bike
Mom, Jackie, July, Cory, Cayman on the six person bike
Baby Cayman giving me loves, me, and Jackie
Baby Cohen with Jackie
Cayman loved this door, she was entertained the whole week with this little trap door. Whenever we came in we had to knock on the door so she could open the little door. That made her really happy.

Me and Baby Cayman
Dallas, Candice, and Cohen
Cory and July
Cayman giving Cohen loves. She sure liked to pet him
The sunrise as we left.

The LoveSac Experience

So it's Saturday afternoon and we are burnt out from watching too much college football, so we decide to go with Ty to buy a LoveSac for his game room. We made the mistake of taking Andy's civic. I don't know why we thought it was a good idea to take the smallest vehicle that the four of us have. So we get to the store and Ty decides on the six foot LoveSac that we think we can fit in the trunk maybe, but the eight foot LoveSac is the same price. Now we know full well we can't get the eight foot in the car, but hey we're guys so we decided lets just jam the eight foot LoveSac in the car. So we get out to the car and there is no way it's getting in the trunk. Somehow we manage to get it into the back seat, problem is, there is four of us and now only two seats. So Ty crams in on the one side and I try the other. It takes quite a bit of maneuvering to get us in the car and once we are in we don't even have room to put our arms down. I feel like I am trapped and going to be smashed. So we take off and we have forty-two miles ahead of us in the car. It was really funny. So here are the pictures we took with our phone. You can kind of see our hands waving in the second picture. Good times!