Thanksgiving 2022

Funny how fast Thanksgiving rolls around again. Oh...now I'm craving rolls!

Anyway, this post is full of adventuring. Clear your schedule to make some time or you can just scroll through our awesome pictures. Your choice. 

Our plans this year took us to sunny California. This was really nice since Utah has been freezing! But the drive is quite long and it takes most of the day. We try to give ourselves the best head start by leaving around 4:30 in the morning. Tyler is always kind to take the morning shift. He is the best! He also gets to see the sun come up.

We stopped in Reno on our way. It was a double stop for us. First up, we were dropping off goodies for Elder Young. His mother made him pretzels and raspberry cinnamon rolls. (She may have given me an extra to sample and they were incredible.) He is currently serving in Reno, so it made sense to drop something by. However, he was busy, so we dropped off his treats to a ward friend. It took approximately 45 seconds to deliver, so we also got out and played Ninja Destruction in the parking lot to stretch our legs.

Then we also went to lunch at a yummy bayou restaurant. I think it was called The Huckleberry something or other. Really good though and since we had just listened to Ivory's New Orleans concert, I recognized several of the songs playing.

Then back in the car to drive some more. Check it out. I saw three rockets sharing the sky at once. 

Don't worry, we also decided to look for some strange things along the way. It's an important tradition. We stopped in Tahoe city to see a 12 foot bear and her cubs with fur made of 200,000 American and Canadian pennies. It was pretty cool. 

We also stopped in a cute shop across the street and found lots of fun items, including a gift for Granny V. Love to find unique items in fun shops. That picture of Ivory is not the item. It just reminded her of Nova, who we had to leave behind.

And then the rest of the driving. It is a bit sad when you see both the sunrise and the sunset from the car. 

But we made it just fine to an amazing house that Tim and Jeannie are getting set up for future endeavors. Meanwhile, it was a wonderful place for us to stay. We were able to make meals and have a place to crash without imposing the whole army on the Kelly's. I should have taken more pictures. The house was lovely. 

In the morning, we woke up and found a friend on the fence outside. A hawk had brought his meal nearby to feast. It was pretty cool watching him shred what looked to be a smaller bird. 

Some of the kids were slightly sick when we left and others got sick along the way. Robyn had a particularly rough night on Friday. But her bedmate, Ivory, seemed to do just fine. I had to take this picture with her splayed out hair.

It was so great to see the Kelly's. We spent Thanksgiving day making food, playing games, and catching up. We played an epic game of Betrayal. Tyler joined forces with a vicious plant that tried to mulch us all, but only succeeded in eating Pearl. Then we destroyed him! This first picture is amazing since if you look closely, you can see Ethan's disembodied arm floating over the board.

There was some super good feasting going on later. Please note a few things. First, their kitchen is awesome. This is the post fire house and they did some updates including making the kitchen huge and wonderful. Second, we had Ivory and Ethan saber bottles. With the smaller lip, they are much harder to do, but both got it done. Third, the turkey was so moist and Jeannie made a cornbread stuffing that was so delicious!

We also started a winner-takes-all-this-is-not-your-momma's-Scotch-Bridge game! There were too many of us, so we split up the tables. Both tables played and the top two on each table were to compete later. We didn't actually finish the first set on Thanksgiving, but we made good headway. Our 8 contenders were TABLE ONE: Ethan, Tyler, Maleen, and Ivory TABLE TWO: Tim, Jeannie, Pearl, and Robyn. Make your guesses now about who will make the final four!

Friday, we lost Tyler and Robyn in the morning to slight illness. We stopped by the park right across from the house. I won't lie...it would be the perfect place to play Spikeball. But we just played at the park and Pearl collected leaves.

Then we went over to hang out at the Kelly's, play a few games and do a little window shopping. We had a really good time walking around what Jeannie calls the Bougie area. There were so many dogs, and the weather was fine. It was a delightful stroll. Erin loves to drive in our car. She loves to hang out with us and on the way home she was in fits of giggles because I had the hiccups. She thought that was hilarious. 

We should mention Henry Muffin here. He is still just as cute as always. The girls all loved him and he loved them back. What a sweet friendly dog.

Friday evening brought us all back together and we played some epic games of Mafia. I was Mafia EVERY TIME. I couldn't escape. And even though I was sus the whole time, I still managed a couple wins. One time Ethan was the narrator and he said, "Detective, please detectivate." and then for the Angel, he said, "Angel, please angelize." That got the ABBA song stuck in my head and I sang Angel Eyes for days. I even got Jeannie and Pearl dancing to it. 

Saturday, we did our gift exchange. If you read the last post, we did the same thing. We had such a good time before, that we wanted to try it with the Kelly's. We once again divided up. I had a blast shopping with Pearl and Ethan. And Erin joined us a few times. She could spy Ethan from across the entire mall. She has hawk eyes! When our time limit ran out, we all met up for lunch before exchanging.

We did the lap sit again. It was actually super fun. I think everyone was pleased with their giving and receiving! 

Can you see the lip gloss I got? Sparkly and zingy!

It was our last evening with the Kelly's. We got to meet Abby, Ethan's girlfriend. (How do I not have a picture??) It's probably because Ethan had a Spikeball net and I was very distracted by that. But it was so fun to play. Tim was really good for having never played before. In the afternoon, we took the game out to the street because we meant business. It was a blast. I hope Ethan felt like we were adequate competition. ;)

Pearl took a ton of photos of all the gorgeous flowers. This is my favorite with the little bee.

We did our Thankful turkey with the Kelly's. Robyn was in charge and it was the fanciest turkey we've ever had. She worked on it into the wee hours before we left. It was amazingly beautiful. It's still not quite complete, but you get the idea.

We also played Just One. That was super fun and the Kelly's have played before. The best was right at the end. See, we read Interstellar Pig on our trip and everyone had the piggy on their brain. If you've never read the book (which you probably haven't) this may not make much sense, but it was obvious to our guesser. (Seriously, read that book if you haven't. Interstellar Pig by William Sleator.)

Okay, now I know you've all been waiting to hear about the Scotch Bridge game. Do you have your guesses for top four? From TABLE ONE, Tyler and Maleen moved on. From TABLE TWO, Tim and Robyn were the top two. So we came together for the final battle. I think I'll let the score card tell the tale. The battle for second was intense. (The small numbers were what the score would have been had we enforced the time when Tim put out one finger but meant Zero and we gave him the benefit of the doubt. Robyn regretted it later.)

And then it was time to leave again. We stopped to take a picture of the epic Christmas lights at the neighbors. He said it took him and the another guy over 25 hours to put those up! 

Going home, we did the same gig. Everyone out to the car at 4 in the morning. Yuck, that is so early. 

We woke everyone a little before Reno. I got some fun pictures again. More rockets and we drove into a valley with some awesome fog. 

This time we had a second purpose for getting up early. We planned to attend Elder Young's ward on the way home. He had early church and even with leaving so early, we barely made it in time and we didn't have time to change. But they accepted us anyway. It was really fun to see Elder Young. As I took a picture of him and his companion, I mentioned that it was nice to get a picture of him smiling, since so many of the photos we have, he is making a funny face. He confessed that he might have done that in our group picture. 

Sure enough, when I went back through, I found this one. At least it's nice that he doesn't take himself too seriously. 

Are you still with me? We've almost made it round trip. On the way home, we stopped to see one more weird thing and it was not only weird, but a little disturbing. We stopped in the middle of Nevada at Thunder Mountain. The internet says it best. Thunder Mountain Monument looks as if the contents of a landfill popped to the surface and fell into a pattern over five acres that is part sculpture garden, part backyard fort, part Death Valley theme park. If you want to know more, there is plenty written about the bizarre conglomeration of cement, bottles, and random scrap artifacts. For this blog, we'll just say, it was super weird and we didn't stay too long. Long enough to document and shudder.

The kids travel really well. Tyler made them the cool travel books and those kept them busy, but they also are pretty chill and don't complain much. Ivory even took a cute picture of Tyler and I holding hands. 

Eventually, the sun set one more time on our car ride, but we were almost there. It was a fantastic trip that just wasn't long enough, but so worth it to see Tim, Jeannie, Erin, Ethan, and even Abby. The next day brought our final reunion. One cute pup was pretty happy to have us back.

The biggest miracle of the trip was getting photos from the kennel saying how great Nova was with other dogs. WITH PICTURES!! Who is this imposter and what have they done with our dog?? I guess she is fine when she doesn't need to protect her people. But don't worry, she is back to barking at every neighbor that steps outside.

Just a couple more tidbits. It came out recently that the year that June and Ivory went to California, they had a little trouble right when they arrived. They went to lunch and on the way to the house, they were goofing around and Ivory got twisted in the seatbelt. Struggling only proceeded to get her more entangled until it was starting to cut into her. They had to go to the dealership to have them remove the seatbelt. The story was kept hidden from the parents because the Kelly's didn't want to get the girls in trouble. But Jeannie went back to an old Ipad and was able to find the pictures! These are stellar. If you want to see the original post, it's HERE. 

And speaking of Ivory, while in Cali, we went to In-N-Out so she could get a CA shirt. I kid you not, the place was so packed. I have never seen anything quite like it, with a line going around the entire parking lot and out onto the road. We parked and went inside and got our order right away. What's the draw of the drive through?? Anyway, mission accomplished.

That's it folks. All the news and all the adventures. Happy Thanksgiving and we'll see you next year!