Thanksgiving

Unfortunately I missed the Turkey Trot on Thanksgiving morning as I flew to Ephraim that morning, but fortunately I put in my 4.5 mile run the day before.  My mom had prepared a delicious meal with new sides and a good spread of pies for dessert.  Will you never overeat on Thanksgiving?  Let's be honest... probably not.

My most favorite part of the weekend was driving up into the mountains and scouting out the perfect Christmas tree to cut down and decorate in the living room.  It's hard work!  Many trees have bald spots, so it takes some time to find the perfect one, but that we did!  And speaking of thanks, can I say how grateful I was to be in Ephraim for the weekend, thus missing all Black Friday shopping?  More than I can say!

Thanksgiving

I love Thanksgiving.  The only pressure of the holiday is the pressure you feel on your belt buckle after eating three times as much as you normally do.  And then comes pie, so make that four times as much.  You get to spend time with your family and lounge about.  One of the better holidays.  There can be some back breaking labor involved though... Elise and I spent literally the whole day previous making desserts - pumpkin gingerbread trifle, pomegranate jello salad, apple pie, chocolate pie and gluten-free cookies & bread for my Pops (don't worry, there were pumpkin and pecan pies purchased from Costco to add to the variety).  Basically, I have never made a pie before and it took three crusts to finally get it right.  I took pictures of all three, but apparently I deleted them already....let's just say "third time's the charm" definitely holds true.

We all flew in to Utah from four different states: my mom from AZ, my Pops from MD, my little sister from OK and me from OR.  My brother and his family unfortunately weren't able to make it, since he had to work Thanksgiving day.  The day was spent at my uncle's with extended family and friends.

Elise & Erik ran in the traditional Turkey Trot (5k) we started five years or so back.  I sadly couldn't participate this year since I sprained my ankle the week before running (in the dark.  Yes, I know....stupid you say....).

Our big family tradition for Thanksgiving is use pipe cleaners to show what we are grateful for (#interpretivepipecleanerart).  It's usually pretty entertaining to say the least, until my brother-in-law comes along and puts us all to shame with his 3-D masterpiece that stands up on its own.  If a trophy were given out every year for the best creation, he would have a bookcase full of them.

It was a fantastic day.  Talk was casually thrown about of Black Friday shopping.  Everyone had an opinion about going to the new outlets that night at 10 pm.  My sister and I jokingly said we wanted to go.  No one knew that I was actually serious.  If I was planning on doing my first ever Black Friday shopping this year, I wanted it to be legit.  But alas, it did not happen.  So we settled on going the next day for a few hours (too long in my opinion) from 11 am to 1 pm.  I did not buy a single thing, but at least we got a picture of all the girlies and I got to hold this adorable girl.

Seattle for Thanksgiving

I drove up with a classmate to Seattle early Thursday morning, arriving at my Aunt and Uncle's just in time for Thanksgiving dinner. It was a full house w/ my Mom, her 2 brothers (my uncles) and their families. I got to meet some distant relatives for the first time. Not to mention dinner was delish. Pumpkin pie was probably my favorite. Too bad I hated it growing up..... I really missed out. It was nice to have so much down time and catch up with everyone.

Friday we went to the famous Pike Place Market and wandered around for a while as well as watched the dudes throw fish around. On the way back home my Uncle took us to a European art museum. I was excited to see some amazing art. Except he didn't realize they'd replaced it with some junk modern art exhibit. We had a good time making fun of the "art" anyway. It was ridiculous.......not a fan. That night we went to an outdoor parade in Bellevue w/ drummers, lights, music, and fake snow. It got me in the Christmas spirit!

Saturday we did some shopping at the Outlets and Nordstrom Rack. I FINALLY found some running shoes I like, and only for $25. Sweetness! I have a hard time finding running shoes I like. I only do Nike, but I feel like most of them are seriously ugly. And I have a hard time spending that much money on something so ugly, even if I do need them. I bought a pair for $100 that I absolutely loved back in April, but they had poor arch support so I returned them. Haven't been able to find a pair since then that I like. Until yesterday!

Thanksgiving in UT

Normally I head home for the holidays, but this year my parents came up here for Thanksgiving. Mostly because we all just went home a few weekends ago for Lisi's & Artisto's open house. It was a great weekend. Didn't have to do all the hustle and bustle of traveling and I could actually get some things done at the same time.

So Thanksgiving morning the whole family ran the Draper 5K Human Race. It was fun and invigorating. It was super cold and it went really well actually. This is a new family tradition we started last year, but this year the 5K seems to be shorter. I was surprised when we could see the finish line already. My time wasn't that great (33:53) but it was a LOT better than last time. I only stopped a few times for a few seconds each just to catch my breath. Here's some pre-race shots -


And post-race. Had to get one with the Turkey! Gobble Gobble!

We did Thanksgiving dinner at my Aunt & Uncle's house. Typcially Thanksgiving has just been with immediate family, but this year we had a full house of extended family, about 35, with the families of both sides of my Aunt and Uncle. It was a lot of fun. My immediate family's tradition is to make something you are grateful for out of pipe cleaners so we spread the love :) Can you tell what I am thankful for?

So after the big deliscious dinner we played a game of charades. Let me tell you what, I ROCKED IT!! It was awesome! Everyone was like, what the heck?! So the first round up the guy from our team made the motion that it was a song with 5 words then pointed to his nose. It took me a few seconds then I shouted, "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer!" Speed Lightning! Then our next turn the person made the motion it was a movie AND a person with two words. Immediately I shouted, "Indiana Jones!" And by gosh......that was right! Everyone was very impressed with my Charades skills :) Other pictures from the day -



Black Friday was interesting. Every Thanksgiving we are in Thatcher, AZ (except one year in Spain) and where do you shop there?! Walmart? That's about it. So it' hasn't held much interest for our family. Being in UT this year I was shocked to find out when stores opened.....4 am, midnight, 9 pm the night before. You gotta be crazy!! Anyway, we made it to the mall around 1 pm to check it out, but I didn't really participate in the craziness :)

That night we went to the Utah Grizzlies Hockey game against Alaska. My cousin, Nick, used to live there for a few years, so it was perfect. It was fun, but man, those guys can be brutal!! Here we are enjoying the game!


Last but not least, Saturday was the big day!! It was the much anticipated BYU vs. Utah football game. Boy, what a game!! We won, and if you don't know which side I cheered for.....well, shame shame! BYU won 26 to 23 in overtime. It was quite the game! I've never seen so many penalty flags though, mostly on the UofU. Do they ever learn? :) Sonya's boyfriend is on the team #31. We went a little early to watch him warm up - he's the punter. Thought I'd throw in a little action shot. When we won it was a mad rush to the field. There were so many people down there you couldn't even see the football players! BYU Baby, all the way!!




Some of you may have heard of the Max Hall comments, BYU's quarterback. I'm not even going to go there.......all I gotta say is I totally understand him, but what the heck was he thinking?!

To end the weekend we went and saw the lights on Temple Square before my parents flew back out to AZ. It was the perfect time to go....right when it got dark and early in the season before it got too cold. The lights and grounds were beautiful!!

Thanksgiving

Early in the morning of Turkey Day my family woke up at the crack of dawn in the pouring rain to run in a 5K out yonder in Pima....also known as the Turkey Trot. My Dad got a little spunk in him or something and just signed the whole family up one day....without consulting us of course! No, I'm glad he did. I enjoyed it. And I made it sound worse than it was. It wasn't really that early, just meant that I couldn't sleep in till 9:00 am....dang it! haha. And the rain didn't start really coming down until right after we finished the race and boy did it come down! I was drenched. I did stick around though for the raffle and won a gift certificate to a local Mexican restaurant. My only comment on the actually race is....boy, am I out of shape! hehe

Here's the family in an action shot....

Then we had a delicious Thanksgiving dinner later in the afternoon with the family. Deeeelicious! My mom really went all out.


I really enjoyed the Thanksgiving break. It's the most productive and the most exciting trip home I've had. I think I enjoyed it so much because 1) I was in Spain last year so I didn't get to celebrate Thanksgiving at all and 2) we did a TON of stuff! I packed so much into the week I can't even believe it!

It was fun to see former students and their excitement. "Hey Miss Anderson! I miss you!" That was shouted to me while I was running the 5K. hahaha. So I just shouted back! "I miss you too Logan!" Thatcher was my favorite place to teach.....great students!