Thanksgiving 2013

We spent the whole wonderful week of Thanksgiving in Nevada with my family. Grammie and Papa kept the kids happy and busy inside and outside all day long.

(Also, JJ is enormous these days.)

Certain members of my family got to realize a longstanding dream and did some horse back riding. A little history about these horses: Like every other kid on the planet, I fantasized about having a horse my entire childhood. My dad got his two horses, Xana and G.S. (short for the Golden Snitch), while I was on my mission. They were both broken, but a little green, and had been trained to work cattle ranches. Xana, in particular, is a well trained cutting horse. I was beside myself with joy to take lessons and work with the horse trainer the summer I spent at home before shipping back off to school. Turns out, I'm not a great horse person. Long story short, both horses threw me that summer. My last fall resulted in a fractured collar bone, and I have not ridden either of them since. I was also adamantly against my children riding the horses for quite a while. But it has been 10 years, and I chose to burry the hatchet. Good thing too. The G's were so happy. Eden even took a little ride. And, Cori is a natural. He and Dad took the horses out of the coral for a trail ride one morning as well.

The feast was great, as always! Dad cooked the turkey in his wood burning oven and it turned out smokey and perfect. The gravy sent Cori straight to heaven. Mom and I started cooking on Tuesday and we had everything ready to go ahead of schedule. Never let it be said my mother does not know how to cook. The lady has skills! We ate delicious pie and scrumptious left overs for days. Grandma Bettie contributed pumpkin pecan pies to the line up and Sara, Kevin, and Thea were in for a few days from out of town.

There were plenty of these kind of activities going on.... unfortunately, this game didn't get finished. But it that was because we were bustling off to the movie theater to see Frozen, so no one complained. It is a W* family tradition that we always keep to see a movie on Thanksgiving day. 

Later that night, we got to Skype across the globe with Jared who is in New Zealand. Heavens be praised for technology that lets us do this. It was wonderful to see his face and hear his voice.

One morning, Dad, Cori, Kevin and I went shooting. It is a good thing I was not a woman in some chapter of history that would have required guns and horses. I do not have a natural knack for either! Dad's new .308 (pictured below) nearly knocked me over and left a nice bruise... The boys all did a much better job. By the end of the morning, I managed to nail a bullseye with the .22!

Grammie and Papa bought everyone tickets for a ride on the Polar Express. We have never done this with the kids, and it was a fun first. We had dinner, got everyone showered and into their pjs. We were bundled up and ready to meet the conductor for our 8PM departure to the North Pole. Aboard the train, we sang and danced, drank cocoa with cookies, and enjoyed a reading of the book. Once we reached Santa's village, we had a visit from the jolly man himself and the kids got to ring their bells all the way back to the station.

Grant found the dress up clothes. He loves to dress up.

Last, but certainly not least, Dad got us seats at the BYU/UNR football game. We bleed blue! It was a game that ended well for the Cougars, always nice. Grace and Grant got to squeeze on Cosmo, and Cori got within arms reach of Kyle Van Noy. A trip hard to beat, thanks again Mom and Dad!