We drove down on Wednesday and made a pit stop at Cove Fort so that we could have pie night with my parents and their missionaries. Gwen and Lindy helped me make some pies, and I have to admit, I had to do a lot of deep breathing and biting of my tongue during the process. I envision these Thanksgiving baking moments full of peace and smiles and the passing on of all my baking wisdom (ha!), and instead I am a little bit of a basket case. Maybe one day I'll reach that level of Zen I am constantly seeking. Probably not. Anyway, we had a lovely night with everyone together eating pie, talking, and playing Pictionary. Miles was the champion guesser.
On Thanksgiving morning, Jenn and Mike orchestrated an awesome Turkey Trot, complete with prizes and celebratory muffins and juice. Miles was glued to Paris's side, and ended up placing, which he was very honored by. Gwen took it very seriously, as you can tell by the stretching going on, and was completely disheartened that she didn't "win". We had a nice pep talk about practicing skills to get better at them, but ultimately blamed it on the fact that she was wearing her snow boots. Lindy was an extremely diligent runner...for the first minute. Then her lungs started giving her grief. She has a hard time breathing when she gets any sort of cold, and even though she was mostly over a tiny cold she had, that running just exacerbated the problem and she couldn't breathe.
We feasted at Chris and Adrienne's house that afternoon. We had SO much food it was embarrassing, and delicious. We played games, including nine square, and eventually made it back home to retire that night, full and happy.
The next day Russ came over and he and Richie worked on some landscaping projects they have going on at Mom and Dad's house, while the older 3 played games with Russ's girls, and Benson thoroughly enjoyed the mud. That afternoon we let the kids run wild at this grimy but fun place where they shot each other with nerf guns to their hearts content. We only had tears two times! I was proud of my brave Lindy for going in with all the big kids running around, and thankful for kind siblings and cousins who helped her.
That night we hosted the annual grandkids sleepover at my parent's house. Usually my Mom puts together a major event Thanksgiving weekend where everything is themed and planned x 100. My kids were so sad the sleepover wasn't happening this year because of my parent's mission, so we volunteered to host a really small version of the sleepover. Meaning no crafts, no theme, no special food. :) Basically we ate pizza, played pie face, let the kids was 2 movies, Richie serenaded them to sleep on his uke, I made them pancakes in the morning, and they all cleaned up and went home. It was so fun to watch all of these cousins interact with such friendship, love, and patience. They were so kind to each other and got along great.
All the babies love this coffee table!!
Later that day we took our kids plus Erma to a dinosaur museum that I had never been to. Benson was angry we wouldn't let him crawl all over the things you're not supposed to touch, so that was a little frustrating. Otherwise, it was a nice outing. That night, after visiting with (Great) Grandma Crosby who had just celebrated her 94th birthday, we went to the Visitor's Center to watch Henry sing with the DHS Madrigals. It was fun to watch him perform and support the Flyers! (I still bleed blue) We wandered around a bit afterward checking out all the nativities, but cut it short due to short attention spans and grumpy attitudes.
After church on Sunday, we headed home (more like crawled home) in the stop and go traffic. We made it to Cove Fort to have dinner with my parents, have a nice rest, and then battle the traffic the remaining 2 hours. Good thing our DVD player in the van broke this trip! Ahh! We had to improvise a little, but made it home in one piece. It was a lovely trip. The End.
