Thanksgiving weekend 2009

We left Thanksgiving morning for a trip to Utah. I sat in the front passenger seat most of the time but took a turn in the very back where I saw a lot of this:

and this:

and was entertained a lot from this guy (made the ten hour trip go faster!):

We ate our Thanksgiving day meal this year at the IHOP in Flagstaff (veering off from our standard Village Inn). Most of us had breakfast food (how's that for tradition?) The staff at IHOP was SO sweet and nice. They were scheduled to close at 2 and we didn't arrive until 1:45 but they let us come in and eat and treated us like family. We will definitely be giving them more of our business.
We made it to Utah safe and sound and had a great nights sleep at Edna's house. The next morning was Black Friday but we didn't participate in any of the madness. Rather P (James' sister) and I took these two great gals to some stores (Roberts Crafts, TJ Maxx and More, Old Navy, Kohls) and to the Dixie Center craft show (big this year were chunky beaded watches and flower hair clips). I remember when Molly was not interested at all in shopping but this year she did great.

We found lots of fun treasures for Molly's sweet 16 birthday bash. I haven't shopped that long is forever, so fun! It was a wonderful day. Thanks P!

Friday night the boys stayed in and watched some movies - Mr. Bean and Jackie Chan - so what's a girl to do? I headed out of there and went to see New Moon. Even though Molly had already seen it she decided to come with me (smart girl).

Saturday morning the boys played some pine cone basketball outside.

Then we loaded everyone into the van so we could go visit with grandma. It was so special to be with her. I am thankful I have these pictures.


Chase really wanted to perform service at the assisted living home his grandma is at so he gathered up all these leaves into a big pile to help out the workers! Chase has such a heart of gold - love this boy!

After our visit we took the kids back to grandma's house and then James and I ran into town to do some Christmas shopping. We ate a early lunch because we knew we would be having our Thanksgiving feast with family that evening.We stopped at Artic Circle for fry sauce!

Patty hosted our family Thanksgiving dinner. She did an amazing job with the table decorations. We all love her napkin folding ability! Everything was beautiful!

Can you tell most all the cousins are boys? :)

It was wonderful to share a delicious meal with family.
We left early Sunday morning. Ryan cried. He told Aunt P that he wanted to live there.
We made it all the way to Jacob Lake and then encountered so much snow that we needed to turn around and take a different route home. First though we stopped to play for a few minutes in the white stuff.