Guest Post

My sister Tiffany lives in Texas but was in town for Thanksgiving this year.  She wrote a great post in her blog about our Thanksgiving activities so I decided to borrow her post as a way to document our holiday this year. Thanks Tiffany for your guest post! Oh, and I did write a few words after her post ended, just so you know.

"I love living in Texas, but every year I get a bit homesick on Thanksgiving.  For the past 2 years, we have been blessed enough to make it back to UT/ID for Thanksgiving.  Abigail has had a great time with her cousins.  They love to dress up at Grandma's house.

Abigail and Jenna strike a pose

 

 

The girls also got the chance to help Grandma put her up Christmas tree this year.

 

 

They set up the tree the day before Thanksgiving, which threw off my internal holiday clock.  I wasn't quite ready to feel the Christmas spirit, but Abigail had no problems getting into the spirit of things.

 

 

Shawn was able to fly into SLC on Wednesday afternoon and we met him in Brigham City and drove to my sister Heather's house in Idaho that night.  Abigail was excited to be able to spend more time with cousins before we headed to my Aunt Kathy's house in Blackfoot.  Kathy has hosted Thanksgiving dinner for the Price family for almost 15 years. (Give or take, we couldn't figure out the exact date she started.) She puts on quite the spread and we all have such a blast together.  Snacks get set out on the counter sometime mid-morning and we don't stop eating until we leave.  Yummy!

 

 

My cousin Jake usually gets all fancy with his fruit trays and this year outdid himself with this fruit boat.  The "P" stands for Price, but one of the in-laws who shall remain nameless asked if it stood for "pirate". Yup- that is us, the "pirate" family!

 

 

Shawn was quickly put on KP duty and he and my Uncle Brent peeled massive amounts of potatoes for the feast.  Here they are with my nephew Tanner who was enjoying some tasty treats.  In the background you can see my brother-in-law Adam who is hard at work making the world's best homemade rolls.  Those things are seriously to die for!

 

 

Here we are dishing up.  As you can see, we had a lot of delicious food and a lot of great company.  We are seriously blessed to have such an awesome family.

 

After we ate, the kids did crafts for a while. I was in charge of bringing the crafts this year.

 

 

While the kids crafted, a few of the lucky adults napped in front of the football game and the rest of us helped clean up and visited for awhile.  Then it was time for the annual bowling excursion.  We had a bit of a hiccup before we left, however, as the car battery died and Shawn and my dad had to jump it.

 

 

That darn battery issue plagued us through the rest of the night until my cousin Jake called the owner of the local auto-parts store and asked him to get us a new battery.  The guy met my dad and Jake there and they were quickly on their way to replace the battery.  Gotta love cousins who are connected and small towns where people are still willing to help each other out on a holiday!

Let's just say that Abigail may or may not have beat me this year, but we all had a great time bowling.

Abigail and Elsie in the bowling alley.

After bowling, my Uncle Brent lit some fireworks and then it was time for the pinata. We did one pinata for the little kids 9 and under and one for the older kids.

 

If you ask her, Abigail will assure you that she was the one that broke the pinata.  While she did manage to whack a big chunk out of it and candy started to fall, she wasn't the one that dealt it the final blow.  The kids had a great time chasing after the goodies inside.

We were sad to leave when it was time to go, but Kathy had made up a box of homemade chocolates for each family which made our departure much sweeter. (Yeah, I know, bad pun!)

 

Here is the stash that Kathy has spent weeks making.  Seriously, that woman can cook!

We stayed the night at Heather's house again and the kids did a lot more playing than sleeping, but somehow they were still all smiles the next morning.

Jenna, Anna, Korinne and Abigail.

Elsie, Korinne, Abigail and Anna.

After lunchtime, we headed back to CV.  Abigail was very pleased that we let Jenna and Korinne ride with us. I think she is going to have a serious cousin withdrawal once we head home later this week!

On Saturday in CV, my mom and dad treated me, Shawn, Abigail, Jenna and Korinne to a showing of the new movie Frozen.  We really liked the movie and didn't even mind too much that we were sitting on the front row.

We sure have a lot to be grateful for!  I am thankful for my family and for being able to spend Thanksgiving with at least part of the Price clan.  We sure missed the ones that were far away and couldn't join us, but you were with us in our hearts."

**On a side note (this is Hilary again) I read this post and said to myself, "When did the kids do crafts?" Yeah, I was one of the adults sleeping on the couch while this was going on.  Oops, clearly I was not very much help. Also, Jameson did NOT love bowling.  Every time we helped him roll the bowling ball down the lane he would break out crying. Why, Why, Why would we give him a ball and then immediately make him throw it away?? He didn't catch the vision and thought we were just plain mean.  Peace was restored once we had other kids take the rest of his bowling turns.  He was much happier watching everyone else.

Here are my kids taking their turns with the piñata.

We loved the mild weather this year.  I always appreciate those rare Thankgivings without snow and with great traveling conditions!