Thanksgiving

For Thanksgiving this year we decided to head down to Utah to spend it with Emily's family. Usually, we wait until after Thanksgiving to put up the Christmas tree, but we figured since we'd be gone, to just put it up before we left. Before that, though, Cambri posed with some of their Little Tikes basketballs and asked me to take some pictures. So, enjoy this little collection:

Hadley, then mentioned she had a tooth growing in behind her loose tooth. Sure enough, she has shark teeth. The lose one came out a few days later.

We busted out the Christmas tree, and the girls were super impatient with me. They were trying to put ornaments on it while it was still in the bag. Once it was up with lights, they went to work.

It was a little bit of chaos for a few minutes, but they only broke a couple ornaments.

And, as you can imagine with little kids putting the ornaments on a tree, there was a heavily crowded area of ornaments where the stool was placed, and apparently never moved.

They even took some extra lights and decorated their dollhouse.

* * *

I worked from home on the Tuesday before Thanksgiving, and as soon as I got off work we went and grabbed Hadley and Cambri from school. We drove down to Baker City for the night, and then continued on to Bountiful the next morning. The drive down was rather uneventful. The weather and road conditions were perfect.

We arrived to Bountiful later in the afternoon, just in time for Emily to head up to Ogden for some sushi with her mom, sister, and sisters-in-law. The kids and I ran down to Little Caesars for a hot-n-ready cheese pizza.

* * *

On Thanksgiving morning, the girls took on Pops in an intense game of badminton in the under-construction extension of the dining room.

Cambri was really getting into it.

Even though the temperature was in the 30's, the sun was shining just right in the backyard to make it feel warmer than it really was. So, the kids ran around and played with all the toys back there every day.

There was very little snow, and some of it was wet. Harlow found that out the hard way, but that only deterred her for a moment. She was soon back outside and at it.

Crewe watched from inside.

Dwight volunteered to smoke brisket for Thanksgiving. It made him pretty anxious to provide the main course for everyone, but he did awesome. It was pretty good. Shannon made some spicy baked beans, and we provided the mashed potatoes, although, I realized later that instead of sour cream, I had added cream cheese to the potatoes. Didn't seem to make a difference, though. Everything turned out awesome. Then Meemaw busted out some delicious cheesecake.

Halfway through the meal, Harlow decided she was going to take a nap. She laid on Emily's lap and was asleep in seconds.

Hadley and Cambri giving Dwight a hard time about his ponytail.

She was out hard.

After lunch, Dwight and the kids opened a bunch of packs of Pokémon cards. It's apparently all the rage right now. 

Meanwhile, the little kids hung out on the other side of the room.

But were soon invaded by everyone else.

It was nice hanging out for the next while. The kids played, adults chatted, and Crewe got his nap in.

And Meemaw handing drinks.

Back outside as the sun was about to set. Again, it was weird how warm it felt even though the thermometer was in the 30's.

Before everyone left, we made sure to get family pictures.

This also meant cousin pajama pictures.

The lighting was weird for this one, so forgive me for that.

* * *

The following morning, when peace had been reestablished, the girls played some Minecraft with Meemaw.

Meemaw took Hadley and Cambri out to Chick-Fil-A for lunch. Afterwards, they headed over to the theater for Moana 2. While at the theater, Meemaw was approached by someone asking if the girls were Nick England's? Confused, Meemaw said they were. Turned out to be Katelin Hancock, Nate's wife. Meemaw was confused and surprised someone recognized my kids. Katelin had some follow-up questions that made Meemaw think she was getting interrogated for child trafficking or something. 

Meanwhile, Emily and I took Harlow and Crewe to meet up with Emily's friend Kyrsten and her husband for lunch. We met them at the Proper Burger Company. We didn't know it until we got there, but it was apparently featured on DDD. It was good, and it was good to visit with Emily's friend and husband.

Also, after the movie, the girls strong-armed Meemaw into going to McDonald's for ice cream. So glad they don't have that power over me.

* * *

On Saturday morning, Meemaw watched the kids so Emily and I could head up the road to the Bountiful Temple. After we walked in, we approached some temple workers because we didn't know where to go. As we got closer, I recognized them as Uncle Gary and Aunt Judy. They were more than happy to show us around.

When we got back to Meemaw's. Crewe and I took off to go have lunch with KC. I think out of everybody, throughout this whole thing, KC has been the most optimistic and positive about it all. Which is pretty inspiring and cool to see.

Being able to go see KC was also a good excuse to get us out of the house while the girls had a tea party. After visiting KC, Crewe and I took our time going to Scheels and Costco.

Back at the house, the girls were living fancy at their Finer Things Club tea party.

They enjoyed a nice little spread.

And decorated some cookies.

My delicate little princess.

Seriously though, she always has something on her face.

If Beauty & the Beast were one person. 

I kid. Even though she loves pushing our buttons, she is an absolute sweetheart.

Elegant.

Saturday for dinner, we all headed over to Wingers, which is a place I haven't been to in a very long time.

The burger was pretty good. The kids were starting to act like they were getting worn down at about this point.

* * *

Other than being with family on Thanksgiving, the other reason we went was to be there for Brianne's baby blessing. 

Afterwards, we all headed over to Dwight and Andrea's for luncheon. It was a great way to wrap up our trip. 

Monday morning we headed for home, and that's it. Nothing else happened.