I think I say this every year, but this was the best Thanksgiving ever.
For real, this was the best year ever. It was so great that all the awesomeness couldn't be held in just one day. The fun spread out on Thursday, Friday, and even Saturday.
And really the whole week was wonderful. The kids get the whole week of Thanksgiving off of school. Monday felt like a holiday because we didn't have to get up early for school.
I took Lydia with me to work. She had fun sitting on my couch while I took care of things. She's been reading all the Harry Potter books on her own for the past several months. She's in the 4th one now and so she read that while I worked.
When we came home it was time for something Veronica had been looking forward to for days. We were going to do a fairy tale play. This is something we did a couple of times during homeschool and unlike most of our homeschool experiences we actually have good memories of this. Veronica really wanted me to do the story of Hansel and Gretel.
Just like during homeschool, I preformed the story first and then the girls preformed the story. Here's the set.
This was the first time the kids had ever had frozen yogurt and before we went into the store they were all a little skeptical. They were like, "Mom, I don't like yogurt, this sounds gross." All apprehension was forgotten when they realized it was basically self serve ice cream.
Here's Charlotte and Lydia enjoying theirs.
And Derrick and Veronica.
The weather was WONDERFUL. The forecast had said the high was going to be 51 so I'd planned for us to spend time in the backyard getting final things ready for winter. There was also a lot of dog poop that needed to be cleaned up. I literally locked the house so the kids couldn't get in until all the poop was cleaned up.
While the kids worked on the dog poop situation I cleaned up the last of the garden beds.
When all the poop was cleaned up I let Derrick into the house, but the other kids opted to stay outside and rack the last of the leaves into the garden. One of our errands had been to buy corn starch at the store. Derrick was very excited to make Oobleck with it. I told him I'd help him with it when I was done outside.
A little while later I came into the kitchen and found Derrick trying to make a little bit of oobleck on a plate. He hadn't measured anything so the ratio was completely off. I had to leave to pick up Brandon. I told Derrick, "Wait and I'll help you make it right when I come back."
I left to go pick up Brandon. A little voice in my head thought, "I should probably bring Derrick with me." But I told myself it would be fine. Derrick would watch Youtube while I was gone. He ALWAYS watches Youtube every chance he gets."
Picking up Brandon took a little longer than usual. He was finishing up a project so I had to wait in the parking lot for about 10 minutes. But I was listening to a podcast and not thinking too much about it.
When we did make it home I realized I should have listened to that little voice in my head. Derrick had not got on Youtube, he had not waited for me. He had gone ahead and tried to make oobleck by himself. There was runny corn starch everywhere! All over the table. All over the sink. All over the floor. All over the lower cupboards.
There was nothing to do but laugh. Derrick helped me and Brandon clean up the mess. It was a big mess, but the whole time I was thinking, "This is progress! Derrick tried to make something rather than get on Youtube!"
Derrick wanted to go to the store to buy more cornstarch. I told him no. But ironically, Brandon did have to make a furtive trip to the store for more cornstarch for one of the pies he was working on.
We put the kids to bed and then stayed up late listening to a Baconsale Episode about James Bond Movies (they read my comment in the first 5 minutes.) Brandon worked on making pies. He was *only* making 3 this year. He made a Pumpkin Pie, a Berry Pie, and a Mincemeat Pie. 
At 9:00 we turned on the parade and watched that. Our favorite part this year was the Jimmy Fallon chip commercial.
When I made it back to the house Brandon's sister Melanie had arrived. I got out the next puzzle and started working on that in the living room. Some people joined me. Soon Shannon arrived with her family.
Veronica had been working hard on a project on Monday and had stayed up working on it Monday night. On Tuesday morning she proudly showed it to me. It was a thrown room for her lion family.
She was especially proud of her toothpick torches.
And this prison cell.
I took Charlotte with me to work this time. She's been writing a story and she was looking forward to working on it in my office.
When I got home from work the kids were bouncing off the walls. We had plans to go to Skateland at 1:00 and they were so jazzed up for that. It was only about 12:00 so I was trying to come up with something we could do. We ended up at the Library doing a little Thanksgiving themed scavenger hunt. Then we went to skateland.
The kids were so excited to be there. I'd texted several people to invite them to join us. The other set of twins from school was able to make it and Charlotte and Lydia were so excited to hang out with their best friends.
Skateland is a lot calmer than Deleta, which was great for me. I planned to just hang out and watch the kids the whole time. Charlotte, Lydia, and Derrick all started skating. But poor Veronica was struggling with skating again. She was so sad that she wasn't as good like the older kids. I reminded her that the older kids had been able to get lots of practice when they went skating once a week with daycare. She just needed to practice and she'd been good at skating too. I tried helping her skate around the seating area, but she told me it was too hard.
Derrick noticed the snack bar and really wanted to buy something. He reminded me he had two dollars at home. So I let him borrow money from me for cotton candy. Then I bought some for Veronica. That cheered her up a little bit.
The cotton candy helped Veronica feel better and soon she was willing to try some more skating. We figured out that she could skate along the edge of one side of the rink. Then she could exit the rink and skate back along the other edge by the snack bar. That way she was able to practice and always have something to hold onto. She actually got pretty good by the time we were done.
Here are the four older girls having a good time together. The other twins' mom had left her girls with me and I was giving them all a lot of space. This all felt like a training exercise for when they are teenagers in a few years.
Here's Derrick out on the floor. It's a think of beauty to watch him skate. 
While we were skating there was a random little snow flurry outside. It didn't last long or stick at all, but it made me start worrying about our travel plans for Wednesday. Two years ago we had travelled to Utah in a blizzard to make it to Thanksgiving. I was not interested in doing that again this year. I wasn't sure if Brandon was getting off work early on Wednesday, but the snow made me hope that he was.
Derrick skated a lot, but at one point he stood next to me and I took this picture. He's growing up so much.
Back at home the kids helped me pack their clothes and get the house cleaned up. Then we finished reading the Westing Game. That book was one of my favorite books in 5th grade so it was so fun to share it with my 5th graders.
Brandon and I stayed up late making rolls. Well, he made them. I was just kind of there and did the dishes afterward. Thanksgiving is ALL Brandon's holiday.
Brandon was getting off early on Wednesday so we were all just in a holding pattern until he got off work. I went into work for an hour and I took Veronica with me so she could use her talent of repeatedly asking "Is it time to go yet." I was able to be in and out of there in less than an hour.
I came home and finished getting our stuff together. I packed my clothes and cleaned out the car. Brandon called me and I hurried to work to pick him up and bring him back home. He was able to shower and then we finished packing. Charlotte and Lydia helped me make hoagies to eat in the car.
Then we were on our way. It wasn't even 1:00 yet. The snow from the day before was a complete fluke because this day was clear and sunny. It was such a pretty afternoon for a drive.
We made it to Brandon's parents house in less than 3 hours. We had a great time visiting with his parents. I'd brought a puzzle box that had 4 Disney puzzles in it. We got out one of the puzzles and worked on it all evening. Charlotte helped a lot too. The kids took showers and baths and we got them ready for bed.
The kids went to bed before the puzzle was done. Us four adults finished it.
The next day was Thanksgiving. I'm always so grateful for Brandon on Thanksgiving. For many reasons, but one of them is definitely because he likes to cook. I could probably cook a Turkey if I had to figure it out . . .and I'm pretty certain I could do a pie . . . and I know that I can cook mashed potatoes and rolls . . . but making sure all those things are done at the same time is completely beyond me. Brandon and his family LIVE for things like this so I'm happy to let them all run the kitchen and I show up at the end and do dishes.
So I was free to just hang out all morning. Really everyone was pretty chill all morning. Brandon sisters were bringing a lot of food so once the turkey was in the oven there wasn't a lot to do. Here's a picture I took of Veronica playing the piano.
Here's Brandon working on fixing some remote control cars for Derrick to play with. These cars were Brandon's and his siblings when they were kids.
The weather was so pretty I decided to go for a walk before everyone arrived at the house. I had a good view of Snow Basin while I was walking. Can you believe it's been 5 years since I got that job? There were a lot of rough things about the 6 months that we lived with my in-laws. But that job was one good thing. My life was changed because of that job.
Jacque took a break from the kitchen and worked on the puzzle for a little bit. While she was in there Brandon and Justin took care of getting a lot of the last few things done. Jacque was so surprised when she realized we were nearly ready to eat.
We sat at a big table in the Family Room. Jacque and the girls had set it with all the fancy dishes.
We always start with layered Jello. Melanie made it this year.
After the jello we passed everything around. Look at this plate!
And I took these a few days later. 
And here are 14 of my parents 16 grandkids. Baby Juniper was too small to be in the picture and William is in New Zealand.
Brandon took our kids back to his parents after the picture. I was sleeping over at Emily's so I coudl have a girls night with my sisters. David, John, and Joe went to Joe's to have a video game night. Most of the kids stayed at Emily's and played until we made them go to bed at 9:00.
Here I am.
I'm not a huge fan of Thanksgiving food, but it was all good. When we were done eating I went to work on the dishes. I love washing dishes. They aren't complicated. You just wash them. Everyone helped clear the table. Shannon dried the dishes and Melanie helped get them boxed up.
After that it was time to hang out. I went back to the puzzle for a while.
Jacque had us all gather in the family room for an Ugly Sweater Cookie decorating party. She told us the "Prettiest Ugly Sweater" would win. Everyone took this very seriously.
Mine ended up being one of the simplest.
Here's the full group.
We voted on the best. Justin's won.
Lydia tied for 3rd with Brealynn
Here's Lydia with her cookie.
Melanie and Brandon tied for second.
Here's Brandon's cookie. I'm telling you, Illguth's are next level with their arts and crafts.
In the evening Brandon helped get the Karoke machine going. This is something we did two years ago and it was AMAZING. This year was fun, but it didn't quite match the spontaneous magic of two years ago. Still Brandon and I had a great duet of At Last I See The Light from Tangled. (I'd been singing it all Wednesday night while we did the puzzle.)
Derrick was having trouble with all the noise and was especially struggling when I sang so I decided to go into the living room with him and work on the puzzle. It was fun to do that while listening to people sing. Veronica did an amazing job with "Lava." I'm not sure she would have done it if I'd been in the same room while she was singing.
I never did get a picture of the finished puzzle - but we did finish it that night. Here's a picture from the box.
Brandon's sisters went home to their houses so it was just us at Brandon's parents again that night. We stayed up talking for a little bit, but I was ready for bed after a while.
In the morning we slept in and then gradually got up and ready for the day. Around 9:00 we drove down from the Ogden Valley to my sister Emily's house in Layton. Emily had hosted Thanksgiving the day before and she was perfectly happy to host Thanksgiving Day 2 on Friday.
And wow was it a party already. My sister Lindsey had flown into Utah earlier in the week for a retirement party for her Mother in law. Her husband John and their three kids came too. They'd slept at my sister Hillary's house the night before, but Lindsey and Hillary were already back at Emily's when I arrived. We had plans to go Black Friday Thrift Shopping together. So we left they guys loosely in charge of the kids, took baby Juniper with us, and headed over to Savers.
It's always a treat when I can be with any of my sisters and it's super special to be with all three of them at once. We had such a fun time thrift shopping together. Lindsey and I both walked into the store saying, "Well I'm travelling and I don't have a lot of room to take things home with me." But Hillary didn't care about that. She found lots of clothes for us and brought them over to us to see if we liked any of them. We both ended up buying three shirts. I also found two beautiful robes for Brandon and I, overall snowpants for Lydia, and the game Jenga. Lindsey bought a wallet and a purse. Emily found two gorgeous Christmas stockings. Hillary found a tree skirt and who knows what else - that girl is eclectic. At one point she found a black jumpsuit and I teased her that it looked like a prison uniform. She said that was the look she was going for and she bought it!
We all checked out together so we could get the best deal. I think we got 30% off the whole order and saved something like $50. Then we figured out how much we all owed and Venmoed the one who had paid.
But we weren't done yet. We went to Goodwill because they had everything 50% off for Black Friday. The store seemed a little picked over by the time we got there, but there were still some good finds. Hillary found a burnt orange jumpsuit and I started telling her that she couldn't possibly go full prison uniform. Just as I was voicing my concerns another shopper stopped to say to Hillary, "I love everything about your outfit right now!" Hillary was wearing a gaudy Christmas Sweater with a Lama on it. I gave up giving Hillary any sort of opinion after that feedback.
We decided it was probably time to get back to our children so we went back to Emily's house. My parents had arrived by this point. It was good to see them. Emily pulled out all the left over food from Thanksgiving dinner the day before and we had that for lunch.
After lunch Emily, Lindsey, and some of the dads took most of the kids to a nearby park. I stayed behind with Hillary and Charlotte and Lydia. Charlotte and Lydia were in desperate need of hair cuts. They'd really needed them at the end of October, but we'd opted to wait because they both wanted long hair for their Halloween costumes.
They'd looked good on Halloween, but November had been a long month with lots of hair tangles. On Wednesday night I'd brushed Lydia's hair for something like 30 minutes after her bath to get all the tangles out. And it was already back to being matted again.
I told Hillary, "what they need are drastic cuts, but I can't be the one to tell them that." So she was the one who brought it up. And the girls were actually really okay with the idea. Charlotte was even like, "I've been thinking about cutting my hair short."
So Hillary went to work on them. Here's Lydia's before picture.
You can see how the back was already getting tangled.
Here's the after. The front doesn't seem too different.
But look at how much healthier the back looks. It's so much more manageable.
Here's Charlotte's before picture.
What you can't see is how dry her hair was. She definitely needed a haircut.
My dad took this after picture.
So much easier to take care of.
The afternoon was spent hanging out. I'd brought another puzzle so we worked on that. Hillary cut lots of hair and even added unicorn streaks to Hazel and Eliza's hair.
At some point we had taco soup for dinner and pie for Dessert.
My dad wanted to make sure we got some group photos. So here are the couples. The only people missing were my brother Billy and his wife Becca. (They are still having a great time in New Zealand.)
It was so much fun to hang out with my sisters. Emily had all the supplies to make red ribbon wreaths so we worked on those. I was terrible at tying the ribbon, but I was good at heating the cut ends to seal the ends so I did that. Someone else cut the ribbons and someone else tied them.
I remembered that I'd brought my laptop and that my laptop has copies of the Mormon Youth Chorus Christmas CDs that we always listened to when we were growing up. So I turned those songs on. It was really fun to listen to songs like, "Christmas is Here Again" with my sisters.
We also had the puzzle going. Lindsey probably worked on it the most. Hillary had more beauty things going on. She waxed and dyed eyebrows. She did mine and it was kind of life changing.
It was such a great evening.
Lindsey finished the puzzle. It was a Lady and the Tramp one.
We finished all the projects around 11:30 and went to sit down in the living room. The couches were pretty comfy and soon Lindsey was drifting off to sleep. The rest of us decided it was probably a good idea to go to bed too. Lindsey slept on the living room couch and I slept on the Family room couch. Hillary and Emily shared Emily's bed. We were all in bed before 12:00 which was kind of amazing for us. (We've been known to stay up until 3:30 before.)
It's good that we went to bed early because the kids were up at 7:00. I'm trying to remember much about that morning. Breakfast was pretty simple and oh yeah we cleaned up the house. I'd been doing dishes and trying to stay on top of Emily's kitchen all weekend, but I finally got on top of it on Saturday.
We split into groups to clean. Lindsey was in charge of the family room (and finding all her stuff that was all over the house so she could pack it), Emily was in charge of the living room. And I had the kitchen. (Hillary wasn't feeling very well so she bowed out soon after Breakfast.) We each had various kids assigned to help us. I had Asher and Titus working with me. They were good at helping me put away the dishes. We also moved the patio table back to the patio and swept the floor really well.
We had simple sandwiches for lunch and then took the kids on a hike. (The men were back by this point.) We went up Adams Waterfall Canyon. My knee was bugging me a little bit so I hiked really slow, but I made it up all the switchbacks.
We didn't make it the waterfall, but we did make it to a good spot where the kids could play in the water. This was a good way for the kids to get all their wiggles out. It was especially good for Lindsey's Family who would spend the rest of the day driving down to the airport in Provo, flying to Austin, and then driving to Houston.
I took this picture of these seeds that looked like bugs with big wings.
We hiked back down and then went to Emily's where I cleaned up the kitchen again. I didn't mind all the cleaning because it was so fun to just be "Valerie" and not "Mom."
Brandon and the kids were going to meet me at 3:00 which also happened to be about the time Lindsey and her family would leave. Emily was driving them to the airport. So I said good bye to both my sisters at the same time. But it wasn't as sad of a goodbye as it has been in the past. Emily is in Utah now so I know I'll see her often. And Lindsey is good about coming to visit often from Texas.
I went back into Emily's house to wait for Brandon. David and the kids were kind of like, "Where'd everyone go? Our house seems so empty now?" Now that all the cousins were gone the kids took an interest in me for the first time. They were asking questions like, "Where did your family sleep? and Where do you inlaws live." I pointed to the mountain to the Northeast of their house. I said, "My inlaws live on the other side of that mountain. Their house is 30 minutes away."
Brandon and the kids showed up and I took my stuff out to the car. I had my backpack with my clothes and laptop, the puzzle box, a big sheet of cardboard I used as a puzzle board all weekend, a bag that held my pie pan and a mini bread pan Emily was letting me borrow, a bag with an air-mattress that I'd brought but hadn't used, a big trash bag full of my thrift store finds, and the giant red ribbon wreath. It was a lot.
The kids were so excited to see me. And I was happy to see them. I told them all, "After hiking with a bunch of kids that included a newborn, a 3 year old, a 4 year old, and a 5 year old it's good to be back with my big kids."
We had plans to spend the evening in Ogden. Our first stop was the Ogden Train Museum. Brandon and I went on a date here almost exactly 15 years ago and we've always liked going back. The museum turned out to be free this day so we didn't even have to pay.
The model train was running. We had a great time following the different trains around.
It's always fun to see all the little details on the model.
The kids also went back to the caboose and played in that for a while.
I'd forgot that the museum closed at 4:00 instead of 5:00 so we had to do everything really fast. (Good think it had been free.) So we didn't get to spend that much time out in the yard area. Still we did get a quick look at the big engines.
When we were done with the museum we had to figure out what we were doing for dinner. Normally we would have snacks, but Brandon hadn't packed any before he came to get me. We thought about driving over to the nearby Walmart and picking up something, but we didn't want to loose our parking spot at the museum. So we decided to find a restaurant on 25th Street.
This was a BIG deal for our family. Brandon and I have taken the kids to a sit down restaurant like 5 times total. I joke that we try it out every 18 months or so, realize it's a bad idea, and then wait another 18 months to try it again. Thanks to moving and Covid we haven't taken the kids to a sit down restaurant since early 2019.
This seemed like a good chance to try again. We started walking on 25th Street and talking about what we wanted. I was thinking something like sandwiches. One of the kids suggested Pizza. That sounded like a safe option. We ended up at a place called Rovalis Ristorante Italiano. The hostess said that they had about 10 minute wait. She took my phone number and said they'd text me when a table was ready.
We went back out onto 25th street and walked around some more until my phone went off. Then we hurried back to Rovalis. We sat down and our waiter came over. I told him right off. We want water and let's order our pizza's now. He was great with that.
The wait for the pizza's went pretty well. The kids each told us repeatedly how hungry they were and asked when the pizza would be ready. Lydia leaned too far in her chair and fell back onto the brick wall. Derrick spilled Brandon's whole glass of water. (The waiter was so kind and mopped it up cheerfully. I was like, "this is why I ordered water."
When the pizza came out it was totally worth the wait. Charlotte called it Cheese Louise Pizza because the cheese was so stretchy. We had a pepperoni and a cheese pizza, but they put the cheese on top of the pepperoni so they both looked like cheese pizzas.
Here's Lydia with a piece.
Charlotte.
Derrick.
And Veronica.
We had such a fun time eating. I have a lot of good memories from Thanksgiving Weekend, but I think eating at the restaurant is my favorite memory. And guess what? We made it all the way to the check arriving and none of the kids needed to be taken out of the restaurant. I think we might be doing this again sooner than 18 months from now.
The whole reason we were in Ogden this evening was so we could see the Ogden Christmas Parade. It started at 5:30 and it was about 5:10 by this point. So we made our way down 25th street to Washington Street.
There were people everywhere, but we found a spot where the kids could sit on the edge of the road while we stood toward the back. It was a perfect spot except for one thing - Derrick was miserable.
We'd attended this parade 4 years ago and that time I'd wrapped my scarf around his eyes and he just went catatonic through the whole thing. That wasn't really an option this time. He just wanted to leave. So I took him for a walk while Brandon stayed with the kids.
I tried taking him to the steps of one of the buildings. I hoped that he could get a good look at the parade from up there, but it was too noisy for him. He wanted to go walk in the dark. So we walked around the dark park. Everything was dark because after the parade there would be a big moment when they turned all the lights on at once. That part would be cool, but right then it just felt a little creepy. Derrick wanted me to take a picture of the "Ghostbusters Building."
We kept walking and ended up on the opposite side of the park. We realized that floats from the parade were circling around and coming back our way. Derrick was like, "This spot is perfect!" We saw a float and a fire truck go right by us. There were also some horses. But there was absolutely no noise. We sat on the cement on the corner and enjoyed our own little show.
After a while no other floats came. I realized that only a few floats actually made it back to this spot. Most were turning off somewhere else. We also realized we were right by the spot where fireworks would be shot off. So we kept walking to find another "Perfect Spot."
We went down to 27th street and then back up to Washington Street. This was the real end of the route. We caught the end of the parade. Derrick liked it here because there were less people.
We saw a Maverick that had a small grassy hill. We decided to sit on the hill to watch the fireworks. This was the official "Perfect Spot." When the fireworks started Derrick was able to see them, but they were far enough away that he wasn't scared.
He still covered his ears though.
When the fireworks were over I called Brandon to see where we should meet. He was close to the now all lit up park. So we walked that way. When we got there we tried to walk through the park and look at all the cute little Christmas Village buildings. But it was WAY too crowded. We could hardly move because there were so many people. So we got out of there pretty quick. I told the kids we'd come back when we came down to Utah again in December.
We walked back down 25h street to the car. The kids were worn out, but none of them whined on the way back to the car. That was another big deal. It's nice having big kids.
We drove back up to Steve and Jacque's for one more night there. I think Brandon stayed up talking to his parents. But I went to bed pretty quick. It had been a long day for me.
In the morning we packed up our stuff and then drove back to Twin Falls. I wanted to be home pretty early in the day so we could have a chance to wind down before reentering reality on Monday morning. We made it home at about 11:45. Our church starts at 12:00 so we watched it on the computer rather than rush to get ready. (That had been the plan all along.)
The rest of the day was pretty chill. Brandon and I took naps. I did laundry. We had a simple dinner.
By evening the kids were all bummed about school the next day, but Brandon was in a great mood. His birthday was Tuesday and so he was taking Monday and Tuesday off of work. But I'll save that for another post.
Thanks for reading. I hope you had a great Thanksgiving too.
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