Thanksgiving 2017

Thanksgiving this year was so great. It was one of the best Thanksgivings we've had in years. A big part of that was due to the fact that this was the first Thanksgiving that Brandon was officially out of the Army.  For the past 5 years our Thanksgiving plans have been at the mercy of the travel office.  We've always wondered if Brandon would get his holiday passes authorized and what time they would allow him to leave.  Even last year our Thanksgiving plans depended on getting orders to move in time to make it to Thanksgiving at Brandon's parents house.  But this year we could just go whereever we wanted. 

Another thing  that made it great was that this was our first BIG family Thanksgiving get together since 2011.  We've been blessed to be able to spend Thanksgiving with at least one family member for the past 5 years, but we haven't had a multi-family dinner since before Derrick was born.  This year we would be getting together with Brandon's parents, and his two sister's families.

At first I thought I would have to work the Friday after Thanksgiving, but I found out that my office had been authorized to close that day.  I was able to work longer hours on the three days leading up to Thanksgiving so that I wouldn't have less hours for the week.  I had to go in every day at 7:00 am, but it was worth it so that I could have a 5 day weekend.

I got out of work at 3:00 on Wednesday. I hurried home in the Jeep and met Brandon and the kids at the house. Brandon had already packed the Honda so we were ready to go. My parents had told us that they wanted to spend Thanksgiving on their own this year and just go to a restaurant for dinner. So we offered to let them stay in our house while we were gone. They took us up on that offer.

So we waved goodbye to my parents as we left and drove down to Brandon's parents in Utah. Since there was no sign of snow, we made the decision to get off I-15 before 12th street and go into Ogden Valley via the North Ogden Divide. It's a good thing we did that because a semi trailer full of cows tipped over on I-15 and backed up traffic for miles. We missed all of that and made it to Eden without any problems. The kids had been watching Mary Poppins while we drove and we weren't even done with the movie when we made it to the house. Either Pocatello isn't that far from Eden, or Mary Poppins is a super long movie.

Derrick had a lot of energy so I channeled that into helping unpack the Honda. He liked carrying things back and forth from the car to the house.  One of the things we unpacked was the "Pie Safe" that Brandon built. Brandon had made four pies and he realized that we needed a good way to transport them. So he made this box. I love my talented husband.

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We slept in the same rooms as when we lived in the house. It felt a little strange to be back here. This was my first time back since we moved to Yellowstone 6 months ago. And honestly I was worried that all the depression and anger that I felt last year would come back. However, knowing that this was just a visit and that I had my own house just a few hours away helped keep those feelings away. This felt like just a normal holiday visit with my in-laws.

Last year Derrick had a hard time with Thanksgiving because he didn't really know what was going on.  He wasn't sure what to expect.  So this year I decided to be proactive and make a picture schedule.  Derrick LOVED it.  He walked around the house holding the cards and telling us all the schedule all morning long.  

Brandon and his mom went to work on the turkey.  Lydia was very interested in the turkey.  She loved looking at things like it's backbone. 

 Veronica built this out of blocks.  She was very proud of it, but not happy about having her picture taken.

 Lydia built a "Santa's workshop."  She was a lot happier about having her picture taken.

 We watched the Thanksgiving parade together.  My kids were all intreaged by the commercials.  We don't have TV at home so they've never really seen commercials.  And I don't know why, but I kept tearing up during the real emotional ones.

Melanie's family arrived after the parade and set up the tables. 

I realized that no one was doing name cards so I put myself in charge of that.  Charlotte, Lydia, and Oakley helped decorate the cards.

Here's an overhead view of the table.

Soon Jacque was serving up the special rainbow jello and the kids helped carry it to the table. 

It's not truly thanksgiving unless this jello is served.

The kids were all anxiously waiting for dinner. I love this picture with the cousins together.

Dinner was really good of course, and my kids actually at things besides rolls.  Derrick was cute and wanted his napkin tied around his neck.  His little picture schedule had helped him out a lot.  (Though he kept reminding me that we hadn't gone to the park. I'd just taken him for a quick walk to get his wiggles out.)

After dinner the kids ran outside to play.  We were all really happy with the mild weather. 

The girls had fun swinging.

My favorite contribution to Thanksgiving Dinner is to do the dishes.  So I helped get those washed and put away.  Then we decided it would be fun to play games.  We played Win, Lose, or Draw which is basically Pictionary.  I wrote down a bunch of Thanksgiving and Christmas themed words and then kept score while people from each team played.  We played boys versus girls. 

Here I am keeping score and holding the word clues. 

The boys team did really well and led the whole time.

The final word was"Pie" and that segued perfectly into dessert time. (I totally held the card back so that it would do that.)

Brandon and Justin and a couple of the kids showed off their push up skills after pie.

Shannon and her family planned to sleep over that night so no one was in a hurry to get back home.  Everyone hung around talking for a really long time.  Derrick and Veronica got sleepy around 8:00 so I put them to bed.  But Charlotte and Lydia were still going strong around 10.  They had a big sleepover in the family room with their girl cousins. 

Brandon stayed up talking, but I figured one of us should get some sleep so I called it a night a little after 10:00.  It had been a near perfect Thanksgiving.

The rest of the weekend was pretty good too, but I'll save that for another post.