A California Style Thanksgiving

This year for Thanksgiving Justin's parents took us all down to California to be with Cory and Tiffany who are attending UCLA. It was a very fun filled weekend. Wednesday we just hung out around the house while waiting for the rest of the family to arrive. They rented a house in LA and it was really nice. The house was up on the hill with a beautiful view(this is looking out over the back patio):
It had a sweet patio and hot tub, which we used almost every day of course!
We decided to switch Thanksgiving to Friday and go to Disneyland on Thursday so there wouldn't be as many people and because the weather was supposed to be warmer. (And let's not lie, the guys really wanted to watch the Boise State game live-more on that later.) See the Disneyland post for all the details of our fun day.
Friday we were all exhausted so we decided to just have a lazy day around the house and eat our Thanksgiving feast. My tradition is to make a homemade pumpkin pie from scratch (I make the puree from a pumpkin and everything.) This year I used Alton Brown's recipe from Good Eats on the Food Network (he is my favorite, I always love his recipes because he does things from scratch the good old fashioned way). It was the best pumpkin pie I have made so far; the texture was perfect, the color was perfect, and the flavor was delicious! I have found my signature pumpkin pie recipe; thanks Alton! Unfortunately, our Thanksgiving was tainted when Boise State lost their game against Nevada. We our still in mourning but you better believe we are still true blue BSU fans!
Saturday morning we went to the temple. Justin and I love going to new temples and we have a picture of us in front of each temple we have been to. (I think we have been to a total of 8 different temples since we got married) The Los Angelas temple was really big. Afterwards we went over to the Visitor Center where I saw an old friend Aubrey Mortensen who is serving a mission there! Then we went over and saw Cory and Tiffany's arpartment and then went to the beach. It was pretty cold so we didn't do a lot of playing in the water, but we did do some. Matthew absolutely loved it. He kept running around in circles with a huge grin on his face like he didn't know what to do first, play in the water, or play in the sand, or maybe both at the same time, or maybe he should chase the birds!
We also took family pictures and they turned out pretty good.
Saturday afternoon the old folks and Jamie (yes Jay, I just called you an old folk!) left for home and it was just the married's left. We got in the hot tub, packed up all of our stuff, and then played games; it was really fun to get to know some of our newest in-laws a little better. Sunday morning we loaded up and headed for home. We got caught in the snow storm just after St. George. We made it home safe but our 10 hour drive turned into a 14 hour drive! We were sure glad to be home and crash in our own bed.