Visit with the Millers

We went to visit Jason and Ginny and their family in Auburn over Martin Luther King Day weekend and had so much fun.  We love these guys so much.  

Honestly, our favorite part is always just kind of hanging out, going on walks and to the playground with the kids, and playing games at their home.  I lost game after game of Sequence no matter who I was paired up with, which was hilarious and frustrating.  We brought Telestrations and the kids loved playing that together.  It's like the game "Telephone" but with drawing instead of whispering in ears.

Rose had fun dressing up with Hadley and Tori, and Clara was happy to play with Ollie & Max.  Ginny cooked a delicious lasagna for Sunday dinner and a yummy chocolate chip bundt cake that may have to get featured on my other blog one of these days.  

Jason and Paul worked on a house project (as usual) and spent some time planning out and measuring a new back deck that they are hoping to have done this summer.

We also got to do a double date with Jason and Ginny one night when they had a babysitter (their niece) come over.  They took us to a really incredible Lebanese restaurant and we had the BEST food.  We were trying to go to Topgolf, but it was a 2-hour wait, so we ended up at Barnes & Noble instead.    

Paul and Ginny ganged up on me and bullied me into "signing my cookbook".  It's a collection of recipes that I made years ago and printed on the site where I used to keep my recipes that shut down, ultimately leading to the creation of my food blog.  We were all laughing so hard when we took this picture before church on Sunday.

We always try for a group picture but this year we did kids and grown-ups.  We also took a normal picture and an "ugly face" picture.  Ginny says she is the queen of ugly faces but I think I give her pretty stiff competition.

The Millers took us to Coloma where we mined for gold and actually found a few flakes each, which was exciting and fun.  It's a touristy thing to do, but really interesting to see what it's like.  Although Paul was disappointed to learn that they seed the dirt in the troughs with gold flakes so that people have a better shot at finding a little gold to put into little vials to take home.

I was channeling my inner John Wayne thinking "Thar's gold in them thar hills!"  (I don't actually know if he said that or if I'm making that up.  I can't actually remember where that quote is from.)  

We also looked at the blacksmith shop where the blacksmith was making things out of metal by heating them and then pounding the red-hot metal on his anvil.  The older kids loved it but the littler ones got kind of bored with that.  

There was an old schoolhouse to check out, a museum, and an old log cabin that we got to go in with a couple in period dress who talked about the Mormon pioneers who were in that area when gold was found and showed us some of the tools that were commonly used during that time of the gold rush.  The kids especially loved when they got to be pushed around in the old wheelbarrow.

It's always fun to catch up with some of our best friends who were pretty much the first friends we made when we moved to California after law school.  It's amazing to see how our families have grown!