Saturday, November 25, 2017

Happy Thanksgiving!

We had a great Thanksgiving this year.  We were able to spend the week down in St. George with my family.  Russell's family had travelled out to Texas to be with Traci so we spent the holiday with the Morwood's.  Russell had to work on Thanksgiving so, sadly, he didn't get to celebrate with us but he brought us down on Sunday and spent  few days with us before heading home on Wednesday to go to work on Thursday and Friday.  Then he came back down on Saturday for more fun and then we went home on Sunday.  The kids and I enjoyed playing with cousins, family, and friends while we were down.

Originally we were going to come down when the kids got out of school on Tuesday but then we thought that would be too much back and forth for Russell in a short period of time.  We decided to take the kids out of school on Monday and Tuesday and come down earlier instead.  This was a great decision for us.  

As it turned out our plans were perfect.  Sadly my childhood friend, Heidi's, mom died the week before Thanksgiving.  The funeral was planned for Monday morning and I did not want to miss it.  My other really good friend, Trista, was going to make a trip into town from Albuquerque, NM for the funeral as well.  I was glad we decided to come down earlier.  The funeral was very nice.  It was so good to see Heidi and Trista again and catch up with them.   I wish it had been under better circumstances but it was good to see then anyway. 

After the funeral, we decided we needed to get together and catch up some more.  We all met up at Yogurtland that night with our husbands and had a good visit.

We spent the night laughing and reminiscing about times past.  It was so nice.  I wish we all lived closer to each other so we could do this more often.  We all agreed to keep in better contact.  It was also nice to get to know their husbands as well.  I know Trista's husband a little but this was only the second time I had met Heidi's.  What a fun night we had.

The rest of the week was spent with family and enjoying the warmer weather.  The kids loved playing outside.  It was like they had been let out of jail.  They basically spent the whole week outside in the sandbox and sunshine.  They got to play with their cousins and loved every minute.
Charlotte was so funny.  She loved Clint!  She really didn't even know him that well but as soon as he sat down in the rocking chair, she climbed right up on his lap with her bottle and blanket and wanted him to rock her to sleep.  Clint didn't really know what to do so he just kind of sat there and let her do her thing.  It was so funny.  We had to get a picture of it for proof that he has held a baby.  Charlotte was always doing stuff like this all week.  

Thanksgiving was really entertaining.  Everyone was over to my mom's and there was so many people.  We also had so much food.  After filling up on turkey and pie, we played  bunch of new games.  We learned how to play Cover Your Assets, Hand and Foot, and Dutch Blitz among others.  Emily's new favorite game is Dutch Blitz.  She played it all week and even practiced with herself when no one else was there to play with her.  She got pretty good at it.  

On Thursday night through Friday morning, Lacie and her girls and I hit the stores for Black Friday.  We got some pretty good deals but we were so tired afterward because we did not get any sleep.  Friday afternoon the whole family went to the movies.  We saw the new movie called, "The Star."  This was a cute movie about the Nativity story told from the point of view of the animals.  The kids really liked the show and though I was skeptical at first, I thought it was a really good movie too.  Much better than I thought it would be.   My favorite quote from this movie was, "Just because God has a plan for us doesn't mean it won't be hard."  I thought this was a good summary for what our year had been like.  Heavenly Father has a plan for us.  That doesn't mean it will be easy but it will be worth it in the end.  

We had a terrific week in St. George this Thanksgiving.  We are always grateful for the time we get to spend with family and love visiting.  We were sad to leave but it was time to come home and get back to the routine of school and work.  Happy Thanksgiving!!

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