A Late Report of an Early Thanksgiving

The California kids came the weekend before Thanksgiving, so they could be home before the traffic craziness. It was a short, fun visit.

It started with a visit to the horses.

Cedrus and Jessie Anne

Kestrel and Jessie Anne

Shirley was thrilled to have the boys here again. She hung out with Cedrus a lot.

Mister McCoy wanted attention too, but he is *so* big.

Steve and McCoy

Kestrel says hi to McCoy

Cedrus found the kitty, who our grandkids call Willow. We just call her kitty.

Whenever something else wasn't going on, Cedrus was playing the piano.

He is very good at the piano, but sometimes his position is a little odd.

Kestrel plays the guitar well. Here he is reading chords for a song from the web via an iphone (or something)

They had arrived Friday evening, the week before Thanksgiving Day. We ate our big turkey meal on Saturday. On Sunday, we went to Dallas to swim in the pool there. The boys love to swim. They both jumped off the diving board and tried diving off the side of the pool.

On Monday Johnny and the boys made sauerkraut. Here Kestrel adds salt to the shredded cabbage from Grandma's garden.

 It takes a lot of pounding to turn shredded cabbage into juicy cabbage..

Teamwork!

Munazza caught the action on her phone camera

Kestrel and Johnny poured the now-juicy cabbage into a plastic bag

Munazza took photos to document the procedure for Johnny's next talk at the boys' classrooms. It will take several months for the cabbage to ferment into sauerkraut.

 The boys wanted to hike to the river, of course. Here Cedrus stands beside his namesake tree, Cedrus deodora, in the arboretum. We're waiting to see how long it will take the tree to outgrow Cedrus.

 We crunched over lots of fallen leaves on our trip through the woods

The boys are way ahead.

Here come their mom, dad and grandpa

 
The creek was high and cold. Of course, Steve had to balance on a log jutting over the creek. The boys threw stick boats into the water.

There were lots of downed trees from a recent windstorm to get over on the way to and from the creek. Cedrus could go under this one.

 On the way back to the house through the arboretum, I had Cedrus stop the EZ Go by two other Cedrus trees, Cedrus atlanticas: Atlas Cedars.

This Cedrus atlantica is already taller than Cedrus

Two boys, two Atlas Cedar trees

 
Although it was Cedrus who did most of the driving of Johnny's EZ Go, now christened "Roustmobile Too", the photos I took were of Kestrel driving. He is the only one who goes slowly enough to get a picture of.

 While Kestrel drove around the arena, his dad snacked on rose hips.

 The night before they left for home, the boys gave us a concert. They alternated with Cedrus on the piano, then Kestrel on the guitar and singing. Grandma videotaped them.

 Although Cedrus has music books in front of him, he is not playing songs from them. He is playing other songs from memory.

 The photos below are still captures off the videotape.

Kestrel's dad served as a music stand

Kestrel singing and playing

 On Tuesday, Nov. 24th, they headed back south. They went through a snowstorm in the mountains between Oregon and California, but made it safely to Redding where they spent the night and drove home on Wednesday.

I'm glad we have videotapes to watch and remember. We're not sure where those kids got their musical talents, but very glad they did!