Thanksgiving has come and passed. The family has become smaller. Our first Thanksgiving without mom. Christina did not make it home. She decided to stay in LA for the 4-day weekend. But, we know she'll be home during the Christmas holidays.

My sister and her husband also decided to go on vacation to Mexico during the Thanksgiving holiday.' nuff said.

My oldest daughter, Danielle, was here though. She got to spend some time with my dad, watching football on the big 3-D tv my dad bought. Have I said that he loves 3-D movies?

I cooked a smaller turkey this time, well, actually, it was just huge turkey breasts. Everything else gets thrown away anyway. No one here eats red turkey meat.

My husband got to spend a few Thanksgiving hours with his family. He really wasn't motivated to go with all the strife going on but I told him that his mom wouldn't want the family to break apart. It wasn't the same though, without my mom-in-law there. I'm glad he went. While he relayed some news about the goings-on with his family, I found myself asking , "So, what did mom say?" not realizing that she wasn't there. That just made me sad.

Up 'til now, I still question God as to why he took both our moms on the same day. I may never know the answer.

We went to Sutter Gold Mine, up towards the hills of Amador County and Sutter Creek, here in the foothills of Sierra Nevada. It was quite a field trip for the kids and even hubby was quite impressed.

Being a miner is not a job for most people. Our tour guide was Charlie, about 5'6" or so, with this long gray beard halfway down his chest and long shaggy blond hair. I think he's about sixty but hubby says he could be younger. He looked so much like a typical miner, wizened and wrinkled but he was adorable.

We also found out that aside from being a historical mine, Sutter was still a working and very rich mine. During the tour down the depths, there were these huge streaks of quartz that carry the gold. Our guide pointed to some spots on the ceiling where you can see small nuggets of gold.

He says one way you can tell real gold from fool's gold (pyrites) is that real gold shines while pyrites sparkle when light is shown on them.

I was hoping to see some gold, red and yellow trees but the hillside was covered with evergreens. Darn!