Thanksgiving 2009!

For Thanksgiving this year, we decided to head out and spend it somewhere far more exciting and exotic than Moses Lake so naturally we headed to... Boise! The reason is that Brad and Courtney are both attending BYU in Provo. Neither of them could get away any earlier than Wednesday and both wanted to be back by Saturday afternoon for the BYU vs. Utah game (which we won in overtime - sweet!) So we hated for them to have to spend what little time they had off driving. So we decided to meet them halfway so that we could have the most time with them.

We all stayed at one of the local.... wait for it... Marriotts, of course! Our rooms were so inexpensive (thanks again, Kristy) that we had 3 of them - boys' room, girls' room and parents' room. The only other time we had 3 rooms for our family was when we stayed in Primm, Nevada and got $22 rooms. You know you are living the good life when everyone gets to sleep in a bed! Traditionally, we like to fit our family of 9 into one room to make it more cost effective. Our kids think staying in hotels is camping because they always have to bring their sleeping bags!

Poor Kristy didn't even get to join us as we stayed in the lap of luxury (i.e. a bed) because she had to work. Kacey, Jon and the kids stayed in Vegas and hosted the Nielsen clan. It sounds like they had a great time.

So, we met up with Courtney and Brad late Wednesday afternoon. We did some shopping and saw some movies and played some games and ate! It was just fun to be with everyone. We went and visited Myca and saw her beautiful house and her handsome boys. David and Bryan got to watch the BYU game over there with Jared. It was fun to see them.

On Thanksgiving Day we were hoping to eat at The Cheesecake Factory (one of our favorites) but they were closed. We had done no research as to what would be open. We just figured we would have some decent options. It was starting to look like Thanksgiving at Mickey D's when we spotted a Tucano's that was open - yeah! Tucano's is patterned after Brazilian churrascarias where they bring all kinds of delicious meats around to your table and cut them right off the skewer. David went to Brazil on his mission so it brought back good memories. We had a lovely dinnner and enjoyed sharing our holiday with a room full of strangers!

We have actually had lots of non-traditional Thanksgivings over the years. When we owned our condo at Big White in BC, we normally headed up there for the holiday because it was a good time to get our condo opened up for the season. Sometimes we were able to ski and sometimes we just ate and hot tubbed. We often cooked a traditional Thanksgiving meal up there, though. In fact, we have spent many a Thanksgiving over the years in Canada which is ironic because it's not Thanksgiving in Canada!

I even talked the family into heading out shopping on the dreaded Black Friday. We have never done that before. I heard the mall was open at 5 a.m. and so I talked everyone into going in and checking it out. Actually, the real story is that David led a revolt against me and talked them all out of it but I decided that I wanted to go anyway. So Brad (being the good son that he is) offered to go with me and then one by one they all acquiesced out of guilt. So we all got to the mall at 5:30 and it was packed. I expected to see lots of women in clothes that they had slept in but inside the mall it looked like a regular busy day. There were entire families and groups of teenagers hanging out and lots of men. It was so weird to shop for 2 hours and have it be only 7:30 in the morning! We weren't even Christmas shopping, we were just shopping. David took Brad and Bryan to Walmart where he said the checkout lines were clear back to the electronics section. Crazy!

We had a great time just being with each other. I feel so blessed to have such a great family.

Somehow, these are the only pictures that I managed to take all weekend.

Courtney, Kylie and Kendall's dream is to be the Chipettes!





Our nephew, Michael, just got home from his mission in Mexico. He is Doug and Connie's youngest. He gave his homecoming talk the weekend before Thanksgiving and we were able to gather with some of the family at LuDeen's house for a little get together. I did better this time and actually remembered to take a picture. I am trying to be better about taking pictures of just the regular stuff and getting myself in there some times. I hate having my picture taken. (Apparently I am better looking in my mind because I feel like I look terrible in pictures, but that is a whole other blog post or maybe a therapy session or possibly an intervention!)

Anyway, here we are in all of our aging glory!

Front row - Tom, Connie, Gail, Michael, LuDeen, Brandon
Back row - Pat, Lori, Doug, me, David, Becky, Jeff



Cute cousins - Michael, Brandon and Angie!



How are the wedding plans coming, you ask? Well the wedding is December 30th in Salt Lake and the reception is January 2nd in Moses Lake at our home. I decided even though it is after Christmas we are still going with Christmas decorations. Tacky? I don't care. I thought I would decorate how I normally do but make it more silver and gold than red and green. My plan (in August) was to have my decorations all up by Thanksgiving so that we could enjoy our holidays and not have to stress about wedding decorations. It would already be done! Good idea, right?

Then I decided it would be nice if we could afford to get some redecorating done that I have been planning for years but haven't had the time/money/wherewithall to get it done. So enter my niece, Nena, who is creative and amazing and who shared my vision of the way the entry way should be. She agreed to tackle the job and we set a goal to have it done by Thanksgiving which meant that I would not be able to decorate until after Thanksgving but that's okay, right?

Well... (I bet you know where this is going!) here is what my house looks like right now. Here is the entrance that is normally filled with trees and twinkly lights and a Rudolph who holds a plate of treats for arriving guests...



And here is my fabulous updated entry way that should be ushering in the holidays as it steels itself for the procession of wedding guests that will soon be coming...





It's not Nena's fault - it's just the way it goes. I am confident that it will be fabulous when it's all done. I just hope it's done before the guests arrive.

What's that you said? At least my husband got the outside lights up nice and early like I asked? Nope. Not a single light is strung yet. I started encouraging him to do it the end of October when it was still kind of warm. Then I continued to prompt him every weekend in November before the snow fell. It hasn't snowed yet but the temperatures are supposed to get into the single digits I just heard. Oh well, the best laid plans...

Life is good. I can't complain. I am thankful. It may be a potluck reception!