Our kids are always anxiously awaiting our yearly trip to Utah for Thanksgiving. Before Thanksgiving EZ has to make this chart at school comparing the first Thanksgiving and our family's Thanksgiving activities. It became clear that the highlights are Aunt Buffy's motor home and Aunt Nikki's rolls. Netta was also super stoked about seeing the motor home again and for a couple weeks before we left that is all she wrote about in her writing assignments at school. The motor home was being stored and the kids didn't actually even get to sleep in it this year, but they had SO much fun with their cousins that they weren't bothered.
This year we started off staying at John's brother Jeremy's house. There kids line up really well with ours in age, so everyone has a buddy to play with. They live pretty close to Thanksgiving Point and there is a newish kids' museum there that is amazing. I have never seen one so big and my kids loved every area of it. They had a water room and had this awesome water table for babies. There are high chairs in the table and the babies are surrounded by water to play with. Conrad isn't really a baby anymore, but he was small enough to still fit in it and he loved it.
They also had this wind machine and my kids couldn't get over how funny their hair looked in the wind. The picture doesn't do it justice, but they really thought it was hilarious and wanted me to take a tons of pictures.
The highlight of the museum trip actually happened outside and had nothing to do with the museum itself. We were in the outdoor play area when all of a sudden some guy started yelling about how their was a girl up in a tree. Well it turns out a little girl who was there for a school field trip decided to climb like 20 feet up this tree and in the mean time her school group had gone inside and no one had noticed she was missing. So the guy ran inside to look for her teacher and meanwhile the girl started yelling that she was stuck and "allergic to the tree." They finally found the teacher, but the tree branches were really skinny and I don't think any adult there wanted to climb up and possibly hurt themselves or sadly take the risk of being held liable if the girl got hurt on the way down. I swear 10 years ago someone would have just climbed up but everyone is so quick to hold someone liable now, even a good samaritan. Anyway, the fire department had to come to get her down and of course we stayed outside the whole time watching everything unfold.
We watched a lot of movies while we were there thanks to Joe's seemingly endless supply. He is also a baby whisperer so Conrad and his cousin Caleb loved hanging out with him. It was hard to get a really good picture of the 2 of them together, but they look so much alike that Kimmy and I kept confusing them. It was especially hard when they were wearing almost matching outfits like in this pic. This is the first time one of our kids has looked a lot like a Brown cousin or any of their cousins for that matter, so it is fun to see.
Whenever we go to Utah it seems like John always has to work a couple of the days, so that is always my chance to head down to Provo for a BYU trip. Katie and her family were also in Utah for vacation so we got to see them and we got to see my friend Marlene from MSU, who now teaches at BYU. Her and her husband actually both teach there now and I am really jealous. I loved my teachings days at the Y. Oh and I even saw Eric, one of my old BYU Arabic students who was living in Austin and is now back at BYU getting his PHd. I was hoping to see his whole family, but then his girls starting throwing up and after the barf fest we had a few years ago I could not risk getting any of us sick. On that nice note, we ate a lot while we were in Provo. In fact, we ate a lot the entire trip. I know we always eat a lot at the holidays and when we visit family, but now that we live in the land of no good restaurants we took it to a whole new level this trip. Of course the creamery was on the list of musts. It's amazing ice cream and it's cheap. It doesn't get any better than that.
For Thanksgiving we all met at Buffy's church building. We have become such a big group that it was hard to find a room outside of the gym to set up all the food in so that we could have food and games going at the same time. Of course the highlight of the games is always frisbee dodgeball. I should say it is the highlight for John and my kids because I have no desire to get beamed by one of those things and I am usually busy trying to keep our little ones from getting bowled over by everyone. (Netta got these antlers at her cousins birthday party and wore them the entire trip till they fell apart).
King was not so interested in the game and instead he preferred to sit with the older boys and play their video games. I have a picture of EZ doing the exact same thing when he was King's age so I guess it runs in the family. Luckily, my kids have amazing older cousins who are more than happy to oblige them.
While we were staying at Misha's house I looked over and Conrad had climbed in this baby swing, buckled himself in and turned it on. We still refer to him as the baby, buy clearly that isn't true. I am not sure when we are going to stop saying it though.
EZ got really spoiled on this trip and got to go to 2 basketball games. First he went with John and his nephew Winston and his wife Andrea to a Jazz game and then John's brother-in-law Adam got some sweet VIP tickets to a BYU game and so EZ and his cousin Arden were living large with courtside seats. They got to have a special meal at half-time and also got loaded up with a ton of candy and treats. I was really jealous of the treats more than the basketball.
A highlight of the trip for Netta was that she finally lost her first tooth at 6 1/2. She has been anxiously awaiting her first loose tooth since she was 6, since that is when EZ lost his first. She also became obsessed with this partially pictured stuffed dolphin that she got at the DI thrift store. I always take the kids there and they always want stuffed animals. I have to admit that buying used stuffed animals creep me out a little.
We got to have lunch with John's brother Tim's family right before they left town and their one daughter just kept crying because they were leaving. Heather said she does that every time they leave Utah and she pretty much cries the whole way home, because she hates leaving her cousins. Oh the guilt is almost too much. Unfortunately, we will never be able to be close to both sides of our family. I love being close to my parents right now and I would hate to be far away from them, but then again I wish my kids could spend more time with their Brown cousins. Maybe someday we will end up out west at least for a little bit.
We also had a chance to stay with John's sister Buffy and her family. Back in July her son Harrison committed suicide and I actually didn't blog about it, because I don't know, I felt like it was their experience, but of course it did affect our family and I was really affected by how their family has handled it. Harrison was 21 and had struggled with depression and was trying to get his life in order, but he just couldn't handle it anymore. It still makes me cry to think of anyone feeling that sad, especially someone who was so loved. He even told his mom at one point that if he killed himself, it wasn't because he didn't feel loved. He just couldn't handle how the depression made him feel. I have known depression is an illness, but having something like this happen to a family member has really opened my eyes to how powerful of an illness it is. When John went out to Utah for the funeral he commented on how amazing Buffy and her husband Stewart were handling it and I got to see that first hand this trip. Their faith is so amazing and it has reminded me that no one is safe from trials in this life, but if we are doing everything we can to strengthen our faith and testimony in our Heavenly Father and the atonement of Jesus Christ then we can make it through the most difficult trials.
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