Our guest for Thanksgiving: Old Man Winter

Happy Thanksgiving to all! After a snowy Turkey Bowl football game with a surprisingly large group of fellow ward members we had a very delicious and filling dinner at Ryan and Judy Leonard's home with several other families. I think I counted 13 children there. The Leonards are brave. Someone brought macaroni and cheese (a local tradition) and, of course, that was more than okay with our girls! It went so smoothly and we had a great time. Wish I could say the same about our preparations to get there. I went to grab my shirt from the dryer as we were leaving, and found that a pen had exploded in the dryer and left ink all over an entire load of clothes. Maren quickly went to work spot spraying with Spray and Wash, and placing those clothes to soak in water. As she did that I loaded the 3 kids into the car and got the 2 pies and a super good raspberry fruit salad (Judy introduced us to) that Maren made for our contribution.  Isaac was upset at that point so I went back to see if I could quiet him down. I had left that yummy raspberry salad  on the middle console in the front. Suddenly I saw movement in my peripheral vision and quickly grabbed the pan, saving it from toppling upside down (it was on its side when I caught it). Just as I was thinking that my quick reflexes had saved the day  a third of the surface of the raspberries and jell-o separated off and slid down in a sweet red avalanche of disaster onto the leather seat, continuing its trail of stickiness down to the carpeted floor of our Honda Pilot. I quickly shut the door and cursed the dessert for not holding it together under pressure.  Then, I grabbed towels from the laundry room (where Maren was still working away). I think she suspected I was having some difficulty based on my growls and moans. As I cleaned the red goop off the carpet, I heard Lainie mumble something under her breath. "What was that Lainie?" I asked.  She hesitantly replied, "Oh, I was just saying to myself that I don't think that was a good place to put that." Not the comforting words I had hoped for, but it made me smile for a moment in spite of myself and my misfortune. When Maren finished and we were on the road we began discussing the chain of events that had delayed our departure, and as happens, realized how humorous it all was. It's funny how we get so caught up in all the details of the Holidays, like whether or not the raspberry fruit salad has a complete covering of raspberry. Thank goodness for those moments we have to take a step away from the details and enjoy the spirit of it all. We have so much to be grateful for!

Below are some pictures of putting up our tree Nov. 29th. We bought a cheap 15$ tree from Home Depot since we are going to be in Idaho for Christmas. We were proud of our tree, until we got it home and realized it had a 30 degree curve in it and it wasn't really shaped like a christmas tree. Well, at least we haven't found any squirrels living in it. Oh, and Isaac was not dressed like Rudolph for the occasion. His orange nose appears to be storing carotene for the winter. I figure he's gonna have great vision. Below are also a few pictures from our backyard Dec. 1st with 5-6 inches of snow. Every school district around us, except for Lainie's,  called it a snow day. What dedication!