Thanksgiving 2010

We spent Thanksgiving this year in San Diego! We got to stay with our dear friends on the way down and back, but for some reason didn't get any great photos with them. Thank you Reis and Simon families!

On our first day there we helped my sister Heather move into a great studio apartment. I was so glad that we could help out, it seems like when we live far away we don't get to do the things that family should do. We had a great time too :).

Near Ocean Beach there is a hamburger joint that we love. It's called "Hodad's" and there is usually a line just to get in... they have amazing milkshakes and fries and burgers and onion rings. We didn't want to miss it and after working up our appetites loading and unloading boxes we were ready for some eats.

Jaxton, Olivia, and Sophia sitting at the surfboard table waiting for our food to come...

...and Olivia is enjoying a french fry with her shake. The atmosphere there is LOUD (heavy metal playing in the background) and crazy.... but fun.

It was chilly (but way better than the snowy cold at home!). How cool is the Hodad's van?

Coleman LOVED jumping in the sand dunes.

On Thanksgiving morning we honored our tradition of eating pie for breakfast. Our choices: pecan, banana cream, and chocolate cream.

We spent some time that afternoon at the beach in Coronado. It was beautiful! I was so glad that my sister Lindsey and her family were there (she is on the left with Jaxton) and that we could visit with my daddy-O and Heather (on the right). I loved being with them!

The sunset was amazing!

We had a delicious dinner with so much good food. Sophia even got  a place at the table. She loved the yams and apples (thanks Lindsey!) and mashed potatoes.

Cute cousins... Jonah, Coleman, Jaxton, Liv, and Sophia.

 This was my favorite picture of Liv and Soph after dinner while we were all doing dishes. They were some tired girls!

On Friday we went to Balboa Park and explored. These tree roots were so interesting.

Sophia and Jaxton were great stroller buddies.

Our kids wanted to find the tiled animals to climb on.

Sweet Liv

Sophia is such a happy baby. I love that.

Coleman was in heaven climbing and having fun. Love that smile.

We went to Costco (can't seem to go on a trip without stopping at least once!) and got gelato. Gelato! Who knew Costco has gelato? I guess only this Costco has gelato. It was delicious, but it was pretty chilly outside.

Our last stop was at La Jolla. We got there in time for another beautiful sunset.

Chad and Lindsey and their cute boys at La Jolla.

My dad got some gingerbread house kits for the kids to do. They had a great time!

We had a great visit and were glad to get home safely. We missed a decent sized snowstorm by leaving a day earlier than we had planned to.

We finished out the month of November with our "Thankful Wall" and some family togetherness.

Below is our list of things we are thankful for... Some of them are so random and we aren't sure who wrote them (it was Coleman :) ). They aren't in any particular order:

• prophets
• fun trips
• Christmas
• Dad's hard work
• teeth
• grandparents
• rules
• muffins
• my mom
• American
• Spanish
• candy
• China (it's cool to say)
• air
• school
• good health
• Mikayla
• food
• our family
• Chance
• Ryan
• forgiveness
• a great family
• leaves
• service
• Coleman
• church
• Sophia's laugh and smile
• my dad
• electricity
• talents
• books
• Olivia
• warm jams
• pudding pie
• Sophia
• watching my kids serve each other
• Mom and Dad the great cooks
• TV
• video games
• piano
• Thanksgiving
• presents
• nursing
• birthdays
• God
• Jesus
• Best Mom Ever
• Best Dad Ever
• Best Sisters Ever
• Money
• the world
• the gospel
• everything
• great-grandparents
• repentance

Happy (late) Thanksgiving! It is my goal to feel and express gratitude more throughout the year.

Just in case....

...you need to cook another holiday turkey, Olivia has written down her recipe for you:


Ingredients:

Cranberry Sause
Poatoes
Sttuffing
Rasberry chpotle saucse
Sault
Pepper
Butter
Turkey

Directions: Chop off its head. Parlize it and put it in the oven for 30 min. Put the oven temp. at 450. Get out after 30 min. Let it sit for 30 min. Then put the ingredients on the turkey.

(Warning: Following this recipe could result in consuming feathers, turkey feet, gizzards, and coming down with salmonella or a host of other food borne illnesses.)

Thanksgiving Traditions

After a wonderful week with family and lots of good food, I thought I'd share a few of our Thanksgiving traditions....

We skipped a longstanding tradition of me waking up at the crack of dawn to hit the Black Friday early morning sales... although Ryan did give his best effort at getting something from Target at five in the morning (I think all of northern Utah County was there looking for the same thing for their boys who love Legos)... I loved sleeping in, and "saving money" (that I spent online later that day... at least the shopping is getting done!

Other traditions thrived this year and we found a couple of new things to do too...

For a couple of years we have loved our Thankful Wall... the only time that we all get to write on the walls and share the things we are thankful for.

Thanksgiving morning is no longer complete without our tradition of eating pie for breakfast. You know how you feel after eating Thanksgiving dinner... stuffed! To make sure we really enjoy our pie we eat it before anything else. Every year I make Ryan a pecan pie.... I don't like it, but it's his favorite. Most years they boil over and don't look great, but Ryan always says they taste good. This year I was so pleased that it turned out so pretty (I gave up my desire to use homemade crust and bought a pre-made frozen deep dish crust) and it didn't boil over... it looked so good... but when we cut into it the inside had not set up. I must have not cooked it long enough... but Ryan and his parents who were visiting from CT said it tasted great (we were so glad to have them here!).

I used to think that my making a pie each year was a labor of love... this year I decided that perhaps it's a labor of love for Ryan to eat my pie each year. The kids and I go for the chocolate pudding pie (at least they get a few mg of calcium for breakfast!).

One of my coworkers gave this to us the day before Thanksgiving... I thought the little poem was so cute. If I ever had it together enough to do Thanksgiving treats for people, I just might copy it. Until then, consider it shared.

Finally, another fun coworker shared her family tradition of making turkeys out of ginger snaps, chocolate frosting, candy corns, Hershey kisses, and a red hot candy.

They were adorable!

I feel like I have so much to be thankful for this year... not the least of which is that I have two wonderful children and another sweet spirit coming to our family. We have been blessed in so many ways these last few months and we feel so grateful for all of the prayers that have been offered on our behalf.

We hope your Thanksgiving was wonderful!

**Do you have any Thanksgiving traditions?
**Did you brave the sales this weekend?

Thanksgiving in San Diego

We decided to spend Thanksgiving in San Diego this year and had a great trip! The weather was cloudy and cool, with some rain a few of the days, but we didn't care a bit. We had a wonderful time and got to relax. Our first day there we went to Balboa Park. They had an exhibit there of world globes encouraging people to recycle and take care of the earth. We loved several of them (I wonder if this was just a local thing or if it's a traveling exhibit?).
My dad showed Coleman some more sea life at the top of this globe. He has always seemed to have inside information whenever we go places. As a kid I thought he was so smart--and as an adult I realize that he really does have a lot of knowledge about a lot of things. I love that he is so engaging with my kids and imparts all of his little fast facts that enrich our understanding of the way things are.
Olivia really liked the globe with the crushed aluminum cans and cell phones. It's amazing how much junk can be recycled but instead ends up in the landfills. Heather was with us too--we all loved the globe with pieces of metal machinery all over it.
Liv and Coleman wanted to show how chilly it would be if they were on this globe.

In the middle of the park we found the neatest tiled crocodile. There were kids climbing all over it and having fun.
Or was it an alligator? Maybe I could get one for my backyard?

Then we walked down to the Air and Space Museum at the other end of the park. One day a week they have free admission to several museums for San Diego residents. Ryan and I didn't want to pay the hefty fee ($12 or $16 per an adult) so we sent the kids in (a more palatable $6 per child) with my dad and Heather.

Ryan and I waited outside and played on his phone. We tried out the pedometer function and figured out that my "run" is nothing more than a brisk walk--I couldn't get it to register as a run unless I was exerting every ounce of energy that I had. It's no wonder my 3 mile-a-day walks didn't do much good :). I am sure we looked ridiculous, but it was fun and passed the time.

Coleman and Liv saw so many cool things. They loved to pose at every turn (thanks to Heather for taking pictures).
Olivia really liked this ship--there were two of them and she got a picture taken in front of both of them.
They had a great time and brought some samples of astronaut ice cream for us to taste (not a new favorite).
On the way back we caught a trolley so we wouldn't have to walk the whole way--here we are on the bench waiting for it to come.

On Thanksgiving morning we followed our new tradition (as of 2007) and ate pie for breakfast. You know how after eating Thanksgiving dinner you feel so full that you could burst, but you still eat a piece of pie, just because it's Thanksgiving? We decided that we should really enjoy and appreciate our pie, so we ate it in the morning and enjoyed every bite. Give it a try next year, you'll be glad you did.

My dad got a gingerbread house kit (we love Costco!) that we put together. The best part is sneaking the candies--don't you agree?

Our house turned out great and it was a fun activity to do together.

We went to Coronado in the early afternoon to take some pictures while the turkey cooked. This is right in front of the shops--there's a great view of the San Diego skyline.

Coleman and Liv were troopers and posed for a lot of pictures.

Heather was such a good photographer's assistant. She ended up taking several family photos--one of which that will debut on the blog header someday and is currently waiting to be sent out with our Christmas card.

Here's the gang at the end of our photo shoot. We watched a beautiful sunset and then headed home to finish making dinner.

We had the yummiest meal--my dad stuffed the turkey with garlic and rosemary, rubbed it with some seasonings, and baked it in a bag, Costco stuffing and gravy ("Costco-made IS homemade"), sweet potatoes and apples, rolls (yay for Rhodes), baked cream corn (I'll have to post that recipe sometime), steamed green beans, red raspberry jello salad (another good recipe worthy of a post), and mashed potatoes. It was delicious and very fancy (china, crystal, silver, sparkling cider, the whole works).

Heather and my dad and I didn't have to wash one dish since we had cooked. I like that rule :).

San Diego is great any time of the year, and this time around we were glad to be there for Thanksgiving. We are thankful for so many things, including our family members that live in sunny (or rainy) SoCal.

The Ghosts of Thanksgiving Past

There is so much to be thankful for. Some of the things I am thankful for include great holiday memories, including past Thanksgivings. There was the year when I was in college and I went to a drag queen breakfast in San Diego with my dad (none of us participated, just observed). Later that day I sat down to eat Thanksgiving dinner with my dad, my dad's boyfriend, my dad's boyfriend's wife, and my dad's boyfriend's wife's boyfriend. Wrap your brain around that--and there is even a somewhat logical explanation for it. There was 1996, in the MTC, when I was brimming with joy and excitement about sharing the gospel. I just read in my journal how humbled I felt that day and realized how much I had to rely on the Lord to succeed and grow--what a good reminder for me now. The next year I was in Valparaiso, Chile and the missionaries in our zone decided to have Thanksgiving dinner together. There was not a turkey to be found, but we made do with some rotisserie chickens. I was in charge of the stuffing--and wouldn't you know it, apio (celery) is very hard to come by in Chile in November--not to mention the stark lack of Stovetop. The stuffing wasn't so good, but it was nice to recognize the holiday while sitting on the basketball court at the Edwards Stake Center. In 1999, just a few months after Ryan and I got married, I woke up on Thanksgiving morning to my very first kidney stone and quickly learned how very much I like morphine. That year, I was very thankful for the people who miss holidays with their family to administer drugs to people in need. Years since then have been mostly uneventful, yet full of family craziness and adjustments. Last year we started a fun tradition of eating pie for breakfast. Who can turn down pie on an empty stomach? Every year that we are at my mom's house we get to write down something we are thankful for and then everyone guesses who wrote it. We all roll our eyes that we have to do it, but I for one appreciate the opportunity to contemplate and share what I am thankful for. This year, I am grateful that I have a wonderful husband and two beautiful, intelligent children. We have a great home, Ryan's got a good secure job, we all have our health, and we are members of the true Church of Jesus Christ. We have wonderful friends, extended family, and so many opportunities to do good things. What more can we ask for?