Thanksgiving, Turkey & Trees...

Happy Thanksgiving!!! We had such a fun holiday weekend. We spend Thanksgiving at my parent's house this year. Most of my sisters, and my brother were there and a couple of my mom's sisters. We had tons of good food and just a fun time visiting.

Thanksgiving Day we got up early and drove to my parents house. Jared deep fried the turkey like he has for the past few years. My sisters, mom, and I spent most of the morning in the kitchen making pies, dips, potatoes, stuffing, etc. I love Thanksgiving because you get all of the fun family stuff plus all of the good food without all the worry and hassle of presents.

Jared and Uncle Ray cooking the turkey


Lucas and Dad

Mom

Yummy deep fried Turkey!!

Me & Lucas

Lucas, Baby Orin, & Me

Tabi

My cute parents

Jared, Trent, Josh, & Tyler

On Friday after Thanksgiving we were invited to a friends house for more turkey dinner. Tyler wanted to use his new turkey frier and Jared told him he would help him out so we went down and had dinner with the Painters. Tonya made a bunch of yummy food and it was just like a second Thanksgiving!!

We also set up one of our Christmas trees and Jared hung the lights on the house. The girls were so excited. We listened to music and danced around. Soo much fun!!

Poor Lucas, Paige found this little viking hat at the Painter house and put it on her brother. He did look so adorable though.

We have been trying to get a tree permit all week, but everyone is sold out. We thought it would be fun to cut down our own tree. So we tried and tried, but we just couldn't get a permit. We looked at the tree lots, but the trees were all over priced and almost dead, so we found a place in Farr West that had a Christmas Tree Farm.

On Saturday we went with our friends the Carters and we drove to Farr West and in true Griswold fashion, we cut down our own trees. The girls loved it. It was a ton of fun walking around through all those trees.

Paige & Kinley

The Carter Family

Our family

Jared cutting down our tree

We managed to get both trees tightly strapped in the back of Jared's truck. Jared and Craig had an easy ride with only 1 kid in the car with them. Jessica and I had the other 7. What a loud bunch of girls. We vote that next time Jessica and I are going to drive the truck and Jared and Craig will get to drive the suburban with all the kids. Hey fair is fair, right?!!

We figured since we had already driven all that way we would make a day of it, so we drove out to Antelope Island on our way home. We drove around and ended up at the ranch. We walked around for a while and let all the girls look around and explore.

Craig showing all the girls how to rope a cow.

Right before I took this picture Paige slipped a little and screamed and it scared Lucas. He started crying but I wanted to take the picture anyway.

Cutie pie Laney

MaKady and Kaitlee

We finally saw some buffalo on the way out. They were kind of far away but Jared and Craig got out of the car and walked a little closer.

It was a super fun Thanksgiving weekend and a great way to start out our Christmas Holiday.

9 Months

Lucas is 9 months old. This is about as close to crawling as he gets. He will roll over onto his stomach and push up on his arms and thats about it. Sometimes if he really wants to get somewhere he rolls across the room, so we have really had to watch him lately. Pretty soon I'm afraid we will have to invest in gates for all of our stairs. He is a great eater, sleeper, and just all around happy boy. He is mild mannered and so happy. Lately Paige can get him to laugh so hard, and his laugh is really contagious so the rest of us start laughing. It's great therapy. He weighs a big 24 lbs now. I can barely lift him in his car seat. He is starting to do things like wave and he is almost saying MaMa, almost but not quite, once in a while he says "Ma" then when you tell him to say it again or you say it so he will mimick you, he switches to saying "Dad." So funny. We have left him home with MaKady and Paige a couple of times now and they have done really well. I think if I had it to do all over again I would definately still have my kids this far apart, it has been great to have such good little helpers. I have no idea how I would handle everything if I didn't have the help from my girls.

Finally a much needed break...

We were finally able to take a vacation. YaY!!! Since Jared's job has been so time consuming we didn't get to do very much as a family over the summer so Jared and I finally got to take some time off work and take our little family on a fun vacation.

We had such a great time last March when we took our little road trip to Kanab for Tabi's wedding that we decided to do it again, sort of. We got the car loaded up and headed out on Thursday morning. Our first stop was at the beautifully snowy white historic "Cove Fort." It was so beautiful, I have to say. I am not usually a snow person, in fact I hate it, but the sun was shining and the snow was glistening and it was just beautiful.

Cove Fort was originally build back in the 1800's by the Hinckley family as sort of a rest stop for weary travelers. It is an actual fort with 12 rooms. We got to tour each room. Our tour guides were the full time missionaries who serve there. I asked how many missionaries are usually there. They said in the summer there are 29 couples, but right now for the winter there are 8 full time couples. They give tours of Cove Fort 363 days a year (they are closed on Thanksgiving and Christmas).

When you first arrive there, you get to watch a 14 minute video in the old Hinckley family cabin, which was originally in Coleville, but then transferred down. The spirit there is incredible.

This is the courtyard of the fort. There are 6 rooms on one side, and 6 on the other.

This is the room that where they would prepare and serve the meals. They said that sister Hinckley (who was president Gordon B. Hinckley's grandmother) liked things to be beautiful so she always set the tables nicely.

Our little family

This is called a weasel. It was used to spin the yarn. They would spin it 30 times and then it would making a popping noise. That is where the song "Pop goes the weasel" comes from.
(you learn something new everyday)

This is the outside/front entrance to the fort.

Our next stop was in Beaver for lunch, then on down the highway to Bryce Canyon. You know, for as many years as I have lived in Utah, I am still amazed that there are places that I have never been. Bryce Canyon is one of those places. I have always wanted to go, but never managed to get there so it's been a long time coming.

When you first get to Bryce Canyon there is a visitor center, where you get to watch a short video about the Canyon. Then they give you a map and you get in your car and go to the lookout points that you want to see. We originally planned on just visiting a couple of the main ones, but we missed the turnoff to Bryce Point, so we ended up at the very top of Bryce Canyon at Rainbow Point.

They tell me Bryce Canyon is not that warm even during the summer, so when we got there it was especially cold. It snowed all day on Wednesday, so even though Thursday was mostly sunny, the high for the day at Bryce was only 30, plus up at the top the wind was blowing which brought the wind chill factor, so the temperature was around 0. Yes I did say zero. It was freezing. But soooo beautiful. We would drive to each lookout point, bundle up, run out, look, take pictures for as long as we could stand it, then run back to the car and head to the next lookout point. I had borrowed a baby carrier from a friend, so I just kept Lucas in it, and sat him on my lap in the front seat. Good thing you don't drive very fast and we didn't see any police officers in Bryce Canyon! :>)

One of the animals that are all over the place in Bryce Canyon are ravens. They say there are one of the smartest birds, but these two didn't look that smart to me. They sat on this fence, and people were coming within a foot of them to take pictures and they didn't move. At one point a (dumb) lady walked by and tried to grab one and about fell on her face when it spread it's wings. It didn't fly away though, it just hopped a little bit further down the fence. These birds are much bigger than they look. They stood about a foot high.

The rock formations there were just amazing. We were all so awe struck.

This is the Natural Bridge.

On the way from Bryce Canyon you have to pass through Red Canyon. It was awesome to see as well. There is this bridge that goes over the road (it is man made as opposed to the "Natural Bridge" in Bryce Canyon.) The rocks were especially brilliant because they were wet with snow.

After a long day of sight seeing we headed on down to Kanab to stay in our favorite place "The Holiday Inn Express." We always get a suite, because we have to have a microwave. This was our room. It's the same style of room we had for Tabi's wedding. I love the decor.

The couch folds out into a bed as well, but we didn't use it.

Jared's favorite part of the room was the big flatscreen tv.

After we got to Kanab and got checked in we got dinner, at McDonalds. (I know, that's not normal for us, but it was fast and cheap and the kids just wanted to eat so they could go swimming). So after a fast dinner we went swimming in the indoor pool. Actually Jared and the kids went swimming and I sat in the hot tub. If you know me then you know I hate to be cold, and I'm not a big fan of swimming, unless it is the middle of the summer and it is 100 degrees outside, so the hot tub was about all I could handle Luckily the kids had a great time, and Jared is a good sport.

Lucas actually loved the water, which is much different that when we took him swimming over the summer. I think he is finally getting used to it. He had a great time just splashing around.

After swimming we went to bed, then we got up and enjoyed a nice breakfast (which is another reason we stay at Holiday Inn) and then we decided to go swimming again. After swimming we got ready for the day, checked out of our hotel and headed to St. George. We took the Arizona route from Kanab to Fredonia Arizona and Colorado City Arizona, then into Hurricane, UT where my sister Tabi and her husband have their new house. We got to Hurricane at about noon.

We ate lunch and just hung out at Tabi's house for a little while. Then we went into St. George to visit some friends that we haven't seen in a while. After that we met everyone over at my other sister (Hannah) and her husband Bryce's house and got ready. Mary and Trinity were down there for the weekend as well. We dropped Lucas off at Bryce's brothers house so they could watch him and we went to Tuachan because we had so much fun last time. This time we saw "Thriller" and it was sooooo awesome. We just might have to come again next year.

Trinity, Jared & Paige

When you go to Tuachan in the summer it is way too hot, but this time of year is a little cooler and so by the middle of the show we needed our blankets. But is was not too cold, just comfortably cool.

Kole, Jared, Bryce, James

Tabi, MaKady, Donna, Hannah, Mary

Paige, & Trinity

Before the show started and during intermission, the "Zombies" where walking around. This one happened to sit next to Tabi so she snapped a picture. Trinity was freaking out because she was scared. Paige and MaKady thought it was hilarious.

Zombie & MaKady

Hannah and Lucas. Saturday was filled with Halloween fun. Our family loves to cook, so when we get together that is what we do best. Mary, Tabitha, and Hannah had all the meals and treats planned, this time I didn't end up doing anything (which is unusual for me because I am a control freak so I'm usually in charge), but they had it planned so it was great. For breakfast we had ableskivers you can find the recipe here. Actually it was more like lunch, because we didn't eat lunch until 11:00, then we had an early dinner. Then for dinner Hannah made yummy Southwestern chicken soup and you can find that recipe here.

Mary and Tabi cooking!!! Love their makeup (thank you, I did it myself)!!

MaKady - Alice from Twilight

Trinity - Daphne from Scooby Doo

Paige - Ariel from Little Mermaid

Lucas - Cow

Happy First Halloween!!!

Bryce, Hannah, MaKady, Tabi, Paige & Trin

Tabi's & Kole's new ward had a trunk or treat, which was so great. Thank goodness I have a couple of sisters who like Halloween and were willing to take the girls out to Trunk or Treat, and then trick or treating after. It really was a nice break.

Check out Paige's loot!!

Kole (our everyday Hero, he's in the National Guard) and my beautiful sister Tabi

MaKady & Paige, and our magic whiches broo (soda pop & dry ice)

Trinity getting her apple!!

Good Job MaKady!!

Carving Pumpkins

The girls loved pulling the guts out of the pumpkins.

Please don't look at how dirty the bottom of my feet are, I had been running around outside.

Lucas loved sitting in this giant bowl.

Paige was the last one to get her apple, but she finally did it.

We decided since we were together that we would take some "sister" pictures, because it's something we haven't done in a long time. It was just the younger sister, we are missing the 4 older ones, but it is almost impossible for us to all be together at the same time. Charlie's Angels Pose

Our Captain Morgan pose. I have no idea why we thought it would be a good idea to do this one, but it was so much fun. We all had such a hard time standing on one leg, we laughed the whole time because it was fun to be silly.

Hannah, Donna, Tabitha, & Mary

You know your getting old when you can't even jump a foot off the ground!! HaHa. This is another one of those pictures that we "thought" was a good idea. Maybe not so much, but atleast our kids will have something to look back at and laugh.

The End!!!

That about wraps up our trip. We had a fabulous time. I can't wait until next time.