Thanksgiving

Here I sit with my tummy hanging over my pants after two days of Thanksgiving dinners. Not that I even really like Thanksgiving food that much - but it would seem wrong not to feel somewhat over-full at Thanksgiving. And that turkey with mashed potatoes and gravy and a little corn mixed in, poised together on my fork - it's good stuff - once a year anyway.

We had a great Thanksgiving at Jared's brother Joel's house in Riverton. We ate an excellent meal with Joel and Barb's family, Jared's parents and some neighborhood friends. Then Jared's other three brothers and their families converged there and it was so fun to be all together. The 5 brothers don't get to be together that often. The kids loved the time with cousins and Si and Ollie decided Joel and Barb's cat was their new best friend (I'm afraid the cat didn't share the love). What a great day. (Sorry, no pictures here - camera still on the bottom of the Amazon)

Then on Friday, we had Thanksgiving #2 with my parents and my dad's whole family. My mom and I worked away all day making the feast while Jared and Grandfather had fun taking the kids to a movie, going for a hike, looking for the lense to Eliza's new glasses (well - that part wasn't fun - on her second day wearing her new glasses, Isaac threw a snow/mud ball at Liza and the lense popped out and was never to be found again. But the good news is we got it replaced for free). It was great to see many family members I haven't seen in ages and enjoy Mom and Dad's lovely new house that works so well for a crowd. On Saturday and Sunday we were so lucky to have some special time with my parents all to ourselves. (Stole these pictures from my parents' blog)

While we were up there, Jared and I also took the kids to the zoo and to see the lights at Temple Square and took Ashton to see the amazing exhibit Body Worlds while mom and dad were nice enough to watch the other kids. We learned so much about the human body and were so impressed to see how beautifully it's made, how ingenious each part is, how amazing it is that it all works so well, how sad it is when it isn't properly cared for. Ashton had a little notebook and wrote down some of his favorite information: "The nerves carry information 250 miles an hour!" "The heart pumps 1600 GALLONS of blood a day!" It was great to have some special time with Ashton.

So this Thanksgiving we're extra thankful for our amazing bodies, for all our great relatives - especially our parents, for all the animals at the zoo, for good food, for a great home, for money for gas to go on trips like this one, for the gospel that makes everything so much more beautiful, and for fun kids who are old enough to be really good on long car trips now (and play the alphabet game thinking of 100's of things we're grateful for that start with each letter of the alphabet).

So now we need to head home and dive into Christmas. I think we have something going on pretty much every night between now and the week of Christmas which we've reserved for just relaxing family stuff.