Thanksgiving Cousin-Fest '09

Thank you to Erin and our iPhones for all the pictures! And sorry this took me so long to write, but all the pictures took quite a while to resize, and the laziness factor set in quite often. Blah, blah, blah - excuses, excuses.

Conor’s parents treated us to our Christmas presents a little early this year and got us our tickets to San Diego for a Tuchschmidt family reunion. Ann has 2 sisters and 1 brother, but unfortunately Chuck couldn’t make it. I’ve been with Conor for 8 years and I still haven’t met his uncle Chuck! Maybe in 2010! Ann’s older sister Joan and her husband Scott live in Colorado. They have two kids – Blair and Erin. Janie is Ann’s younger sister, and she and her husband Tom live in Carlsbad, CA with their three children: Chelsea, Chase and Charlie. We all headed to San Diego for a 5 day-weekend – the cousins are all pretty similar in age, so it was the perfect time to get us all together!

It’s a good thing Janie is so nice and has great neighbors, because we were able to borrow her neighbors' house for the week, since they were in Fiji. Yup, I said Fiji. Janie’s neighbor was a famous surfer – Trevor Christ (rhymes with Twist, not the Almighty.) He has a beautiful home, and an adorable family! But, more importantly, they have Bowser. It was love at first lick. Bowser is the family Rottweiler, and he was the sweetest dog.






Thursday, which was Thanksgiving, was instead ThankMickey Day! We headed to Disneyland, which is about an hour from Janie’s house. There were 10 of us total: Ann, Cheryl, Conor, Megan, Joan, Blair, Erin, Janie, Chase, Charlie. Chelsea was supposed to come, but she came down with Mono and had to stay home to rest. The boys (Scott, Bill and Tom) stayed home to go biking. I haven’t been to Disneyland since high school, so to say I was excited is an understatement. The last time I went, California Adventure wasn’t even open yet! There is something wrong with me. The entire day was a blast – we fit in as much as we could in 11 hours.

At California Adventure we started the day with Soarin’ Over California, then California Screamin’, Midway Mania, and ended with Tower of Terror.











At Disneyland we hit up Astro Blaster, Splash Mountain, Indiana Jones, Pirates of the Caribbean, and Space Mountain.












I’m pretty sure I couldn’t wipe the stupid grin off my face the entire time. It didn’t matter how bad my feet hurt, or that I was exhausted – I was in heaven.

Top 3 rides:
1. Space Mountain
2. Tower of Terror
3. California Screamin’

Top 3 Moments:
1. Conor falling while getting off of Space Mountain
2. Splash Mountain picture
3. Just hanging with the cousins in general

3 Worst Moments:
1. Not having a picture of Conor falling while getting off of Space Mountain
2. Not seeing Gepetto
3. Not seeing a talking trash can

On Friday we woke up and planned a cousin day while the grown-ups prepared Thanksgiving dinner. Cheryl, Conor, Megan, Blair, Erin, Chase and Charlie went to Carlsbad’s version of Zones. We first hit up the batting cages so the boys could re-live the old days. At first, the girls weren’t going to bat, but they looked like they were having fun, so we all joined in. It was so fun, I haven’t batted since junior year of high school.






After the batting cages, we prepared for our 18 holes. We all generally sucked, but Conor and Erin got a hole-in-one and Conor won it all.







You can’t go to a place like that and NOT play Skee Ball! I was playing Air Hockey with Charlie, and next thing I know, Megan is winning 500 tickets on some hokey game. And then I turned around and Chase was doing the same thing on another game! We earned 1800 tickets collectively and went to the counter to pick out a cool toy. We were 300 tickets short of getting each of us a sweet pair of glasses, so Chase took his last 3 coins to the game he was luckiest at, and on his last game, he won 300 tickets exactly! It was perfect!

As we were leaving, we realized that it would be pretty mean of us to walk in with these glasses and not have a pair for Chelsea or Chase’s girlfriend Kristina, so we headed to the dollar store to see if we could find 2 extra pairs. No luck, but we did find some ideas for next year’s Halloween costumes…




The boys headed to two more stores and the third store was a charm - they found the same glasses and colors! The girls headed home to put on our swimsuits and use the Christ’s hot tub and pool. Their pool is a salt-water pool that has a slide. I love that family. Even though it was cold, we couldn’t pass up trying everything out.



After hanging in the pool, it was time to get ready for Thanksgiving dinner. The grown-ups did a great job – everything tasted so good! We all walked in wearing our glasses, which caught everyone off guard. What can I say? We were proud of our prize!



We're all incredibly tech-savvy. You're counting correctly. 9 people, 9 iPhones. Actually, out of the entire family, only 2 of us didn't have iPhones!





After a yummy dinner, we ended the night with a round of Loaded Questions and some ear candles before heading to bed - we were still all a bit exhausted after our day at Disneyland!







Saturday started with us cleaning up the Christ’s house because they were headed home that afternoon, and we wanted everything looking nice for when they got home. The kids snuck off to In ‘n Out Burger to eat lunch, played some Rock Band, and the girls were spoiled and treated to a relaxing massage. My massage was with the owner named Jack. He was hilarious! Every time I opened my eyes, he stuck his tongue out at me. At the end they sort of slap your legs as part of the message (it sounds weird, but feels really good) and he pretended like he was beating me up. My kind of guy!




That night we all went out to dinner together at Juanita’s, a local favorite for the FitzSimons family. Apparently the thing to order out there is the California burrito – carne asada and French fries inside a tortilla!

Everyone followed us back to our hotel room for the night at the La Costa Resort - it was an awesome hotel, I wish we could have had one more night to spend there! After a few photo opportunities, we played a card game called ERF and Party Playoff with the cousins before we all said our goodbyes and conked out before our early flight the next day.








It was so great to see the cousins again – I hope we do it again soon! Thanksgiving 2010??