Yo, Gobble Gobble

Charlotte had a great first Thanksgiving!  We went to my parents' condo in Mammoth, in the Eastern Sierras.  It's 250 miles away, but seeing as how we have to drive through the mountains to get there, it takes four and a half hours on a good day.  Throw in a 5 month old, and you're adding at least another half hour to an hour.  We left on Wednesday afternoon, and the drive was pretty easy.  Charlotte handled it well, although she had a rough first night, waking up every hour or so and crying.  Mammoth is at a pretty high altitude, over 8000 feet, and that's high enough to make me get a very mild form of altitude sickness (headache and dry throat). Poor Charlotte couldn't communicate her discomfort, other than crying.

Anyway, we ate a lot of yummy food, drank a lot of wine, and relaxed.  My mom and I saw New Moon on Friday afternoon (one of two movies playing at the Mammoth movie theater), and it was actually a lot better than I expected (I thought the first movie was pretty awful).  When we got out of the theater, the weather had changed quite drastically, and it was snowing!  I love when it snows in the mountains because it means it's time for ski season; however, it's not so great when you have to drive in it.

When we woke up the next morning, Saturday, at least a foot of snow had falled on the ground, which did not bode well for our drive home that day.  The weather report indicated that the storm had mostly passed through, but that was not the case at all.  It was never quite a whiteout, but it was definitely the most snow I've seen along Highway 395.  A truck flipped over, semis were stuck in the snow, and we even had to navigate around some cars stuck in the middle of the road.  Pretty harrowing.  Thank goodness for the Subaru and not having to put on chains!  Unfortunately, the drive home still took SEVEN hours!  Charlotte did great, considering we didn't get to stop at our halfway point until after over three hours of driving.  Sadly, the hours spent alone in the backseat, rear-facing, must have done a number on our little girl because she screamed and screamed on Saturday night until about two a.m.  We've never experienced anything like it!  Everytime we tried to put her in her crib, she'd start screaming inconsolably.  And then once Charlotte finally fell asleep, Tandy decided to howl at the top of her lungs every time the heater kicked on.  It was a pretty miserable night.

However, here are the fun pictures from our weekend.

Charlotte's daycare lady made her an Indian headdress to wear.

Charlotte tried mashed bananas for the first time - yum!

Having fun with her Mimi!

Charlotte's first time in the snow! (She wasn't really sure what to make of it).