thanks!

Warning: this post contains photographs of happy people enjoying

warm weather. Proceed at your own risk.

As mentioned in this weekend’s 3-way, my family enjoyed a non-traditional Thanksgiving at a local hotel. Living in beautiful San Diego, we often take advantage of the opportunity to stay-cation. Sometimes it just seems crazy to suffer the expense and toil of travel when we hardly have the time to appreciate what we’ve got in our own backyard. So this Thanksgiving when we found ourselves without a plan of any sort, we decided to head over the bridge to Coronado for a fancy Thanksgiving buffet, and spend the night at the hotel where it was hosted.

We arrived in the early afternoon and spent many hours by the pool enjoying a particularly beautiful day. I was becoming as pale as a Cullen with the relentless indoor nonsense required by work, so it felt great to be out there soaking up the warm rays. As we headed up to our room to get ready for dinner, the sun was setting over the marina.

A make out photo is required whenever our kids are charged with capturing a moment.

We enjoyed the lavish buffet at 5:00. It was absurd, really. I can eat like a linebacker, but still… it was impossible to make a dent in that quantity of food. My boy blew my mind, though. We started at the salad section because I insisted, and his first plate consisted entirely of tomato wedges. Then he went for the fruit, and filled a bowl with all manner of fancy berries and tropical delicacies. When those first courses had been consumed, he went in for the kill: the carving station. I was glad that everyone had eaten some raw veggies, because the only hot option was an acorn squash prepared so decadently that it really would be better described as dessert. But my boy was in his element, he loaded up on the turkey, prime rib, salmon, and mashed potatoes with gravy, eschewing the stuffing and cranberry sauce that rounded out my plate(s). I think he went back three times, cleaning each plate. Then he discovered that there was a whole separate buffet set out for kids, which he visited twice for chicken tenders and curly fries. My girl, who had more reasonably partaken of the buffet with a traditional kid’s thanksgiving plate (turkey and bread), enjoyed a huge serving of macaroni and cheese from the kids’ buffet. As you can imagine, after all of this indulgence, we were full to the gills. But friends and countrymen, let us not forget the desserts! I’m not much of a dessert person, I’d rather fill up with another glass of champagne or a slice of prime rib, but this spread was a veritable cornucopia of culinary extravagance. I feel ill just thinking about all that the kids ate, use your imagination, knowing that there was a five tier fountain of chocolate involved.

After an evening of swimming in the pool and soaking in the jacuzzi and enjoying our room and exploring the grounds, we crashed.

On Friday morning, we woke to a shroud of fog rolling in from the sea. It was beautiful and the sun made enough appearances to keep us poolside for most of the day. We had talked about tooling around Coronado that day, but then we asked ourselves: why? So we stayed put, enjoying ping pong and giant chess and the cantina until it was time to force ourselves back to reality and head home.

We're so thankful for where we live and for what we've got and for the time we spent together on this impromtu nearby getaway. And most of all, we are thankful for fountains of chocolate.