Thanksgiving & The Months Before
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For one thing, we loved participating in our second Cardboard drive in at the library. The girls asked for more independence this time with making their cars, which I begrudgingly obliged haha. Thank goodness I still have Bear who lets me help him! That said, I loved seeing their personalities and creativity flow and it was a fun night.
We of course decorated for Christmas right after Halloween, and have been loving the cozy ambiance it brings to our home, helped along by the music and movies, and lights we've gone to see. We've also joined the masses, to watch Frozen 2 in theatres as a family, which was great, and by indulging in all the new [and old!] stuff Disney Plus has had to offer, which has meant some fun movie nights. We've done our usual things, like fun school days, play dates w friends, museum visits, farmers market days, tried some new recipes and gone out to try some other foods. The kids are all THRIVING in their different areas, especially academically and socially and that has been fun to be a part of.
I've been able to do some fun 'me time' type of stuff here and there, which has been fun-things like a mozzarella making class w a friend, finding some amazing Craft chocolate deals and experimenting in cooking/baking, lots of reading and audiobooks, and going to my first ever Super Saturday [and activity that I've heard about but never been too that some church members do-just like a big craft day kind of thing] where I made some Christmas ornaments that I have mixed feelings about.
Like I said, we also had some hard stuff here and there. I went back and forth on mentioning it at all, but since I think I probably read this blog/journal more then anyone I wanted to have at least a piece of this hard reality down before trying to move on. Of course, like I mentioned earlier, there were bouts of some nasty sicknesses that left us all a mess and disrupted our normal schedule for a solid week or so. And then earlier in the month a true tragedy occurred and my brother, who's in his first year of college experienced the loss of his roommate under [more] difficult circumstances them normal. It was hard-for him, and for all of us who love and care and want to support him. But one of the nice small things that came of that was a quick, unexpected visit from him and my Dad for a night. It was nice to talk about other things, watch some shows we'd been waiting for, play some games and also talk and NOT talk about it, but still understand a little bit. I'm glad they came, even if it was under unfortunate circumstances.
We also got the amazing gift of being able to get some family pictures done by my talented friend Maddy. In getting all set up for it, Lester and I were realising that we haven't gotten official pictures since before Addy was born haha. Major parent fail-so we were extra happy to be able to correct that. I think I assumed that the kids would turn out amazing in the pictures, but I was shocked to see how beautiful she made Lester and I look haha! I felt like you could see the love and fun we have together through her work, which is such a special thing. Basically she's a wizard and I can't wait to share them over the course of the next year or so, and figure out which ones to hang in our home. That said, here are a few of our favourites that are not on the Christmas cards we'll be sending out haha!
And of course, the biggest highlight of this last month or two was our Thanksgiving trip. A day or two before we were planning on leaving, plans changed, but we were still lucky enough to be able to get together in Utah for a few days w Hillary and family, Chio and family, Luke and Sam. The drive up was extremely windy, icy and snowy and we saw several crashes along the way, so we took it pretty slow-but once we got there, all of us loved being able to visit with so many cousins, siblings and friends. Bed time became a long time ago type of thing, and we were able to break off into various groups a few times, like get out a grab dessert and catch up, or go see a movie, do some grocery or Black Friday shopping, talk politics, and watch the daily fashion show our kids insisted on etc.
On Thanksgiving itself, we all took turns using the double oven to have an incredibly consistent, delicious meal-like, when I say that I mean I don't think their was a single dish that was not amazing, and it was fun that we all got to contribute. While things cooked, a big group of us went across the street to enjoy the tons of snow that had been gifted us with sledding, snowball fights, snow angels and a small snowman or two. The kids all just beamed taking turns plummeting down each little slope or lift, and even some of the adults got a piece of the action [I swear, mine and Chio's tail bones will be bruised forever after getting some air in a lift]. It was truly magical, until about 10 minutes before we left, when all the kids suddenly had had enough and the theatrics ensued haha. Still, hot chocolate and some fun Christmas movies fixed it up back at the house, and the feast later didn't hurt either. The next day, after said movie, we did some more snow play in the backyard, and some leftover morning pie, bc duh, and then made our way out down to Salt Lake to see the temple lights [which were so beautiful, especially with the falling snow and music playing in the background], visit Santa at the mall, and grab some dinner while the kids ran wild at the play place. After grabbing some hot chocolate on the way back to the house, we spent the night playing games and talking. On our last day there, we went on a walk to see the lake freezing over and play for a bit, check out more Black Friday deals, watch an intriguing documentary Hillary had recommended, before we broke off to get some soup dumplings [I MISSED YOU] and walk through some more light displays. We spent the rest of the night enjoying each others company, and packing up to leave the next morning at 5:30.
After a rousing temper fit for the first hour of the drive courtesy of Bear, it went smoothly and fairly quickly. We made a slight stop on the way back to check out Shoshone Falls which everyone had been telling us was beautiful, and they were right! Now after finally getting back we are all a bit of a mess, but trying to stay cozy and warm while we get ready to get back to reality.
Over all, we keep feeling surges of gratitude for this incredible life and experiences we are getting to have-especially now as we head into truly the MOST wonderful time of the year!!!
