Tom and Pat visited us this past weekend. It was a little bit calmer than the previous weekend. Thursday evening we attempted to eat at the Elephant Bar restaurant (a favorite of ours to take visitors to). The evening was capped off by Ella having a small meltdown in the restaurant. So it wasn't the most pleasant experience. On the other hand, Lily slept the whole meal so that was a plus. ;-)

Friday morning, Tom and Pat watched the girls so I could have a little time to myself (spent browsing at Barnes and Noble). Then we spent the rest of the day around the house. Grand Tom and Grand Pat took Ella for a walk and got Baskin Robbins for everyone. Yum! And we finally got around to carving our pumpkins that had been sitting on our balcony for about a week. Check out Carving Pumpkins to see the results.

Saturday we took a trip to the Brand Library park. The library building has a lot of great architecture and foliage around it. A perfect setting for a California Christmas card picture. Although Ella wasn't real cooperative all weekend with having her picture taken (notice her absence above and in the pumpkin picture with Tom and Pat in the carving movie), we did manage to get a halfway decent picture of the four of us and the six of us. Ella is only slightly scowling. Not too bad.

Andrew and I were also able to get out just the two of us to do a little shopping. We decided to run errands together instead of doing something like going to a movie. Funny, how your priorities change. A few years ago, we would have loved to go to a movie (in fact we went almost every weekend before kids). But now, it seems kind of a waste of time to sit next to each other and not talk, staring blankly ahead. Don't get me wrong, I still love to go see a good movie. It just seems like more fun to actually spend time talking with Andrew than just sitting there with him. ;-)

Saturday evening, we invited Andrew's cousin Ed, Yolie and Patrick over for pizza and to meet Lily. We had a really nice visit with them. It was nice to get caught up with Ed and Yolie. We don't see them as often as we should for them only living 45 minutes away from us!

Sunday, we all piled into the Pilot (it kind of feels like you're riding in a school bus with all those people in it, especially when you're sitting in the waaay back and you go over bumps. You fly up in your seat just like on a school bus!) and went to the Glendale Galleria. Ella ran around the play area a bit and then we all headed over to the Disney store where Pat stocked up on stuff for both Ella and Lily. We just spent the rest of the day relaxing and watching football. We got to see some of Hornet's graphics for the Jets on television. I guess the Hornet crew who were at the game also got on television. But we deleted the game from the DVR before we had a chance to see them. ;-(

Tom and Pat had a safe trip back on Monday. And now we are looking forward to our next visitors, Erin and DJ for Thanksgiving!