Thanksgiving 2015

This was our first Holiday having to travel home. It was the first time I’ve stayed at my in-laws, and it is a total different experience not going home each night. But we had so much fun! I took the kids up a little early to see a few friends and run some errands. Pat drove up after work on Wednesday night and traveled through a serious snow storm. What usually takes 3 1/2 hours to drive home, turned into about six hours. We were happy when he safely pulled in to the driveway.

We stayed at Dorsie and Terry’s house, (Pat’s dad’s house) along with Pat’s brother Kash and his family from AZ. Pat and both of his brother’s aren’t together often, so it was a really fun week.

These two had so much fun!

Thanksgiving Day we split the day with both of Pat’s parents. We spent the first half with the Sullenger/Tibbitts family. And then drove down to Michele and Layne’s, (Pat’s mom’s) later that afternoon. We ate two meals and literally were stuffed by the end of the night. It was a great Thanksgiving! Thank you Michele and Terry for all the hard work you put in.

Grandma and Grandpa with all the grand kids there for Thanksgiving.

Kash and Cruiz

Sometimes I can't believe we have three boys.
Cannon, Cruiz, Ledger

Cousin Ruehl

Great Grandpa Anderson

We spent Friday at the Siddoway’s. We started the day off watching The Good Dinosaur at the movie theater. I looked over at Ledger during the middle of the movie and he was literally fighting back tears and said, “This is the saddest movie I’ve ever seen!” That pretty much sums the movie up. 

We spent the rest of the afternoon at my parent’s house, my kids were in cousin heaven with all of their cousins up on both sides!

Rhett and Dustin's dog, Teddy

Grandpa bought a remote control car for the boys. They all had so much fun!

Jack and Ledger

My boys finally warmed up to Uncle Rhett.

Teddy... Haha This small horse sized dog loves to sit on people's laps!

Classic Cannon face

The rest of the week we just hung out at the Sullengers.
Cannon and Cruiz had their very first bubble bath… As you can tell, they weren’t big fans until the very end. I wish I would have recorded their Grandpa Sullenger getting the bath ready, and then laughing his head off at them. It was the cutest thing.

   

Roxie 

Little Owen

We went to Blastoff and let the kids go crazy. We ate dinner at Cafe Sabor afterward.
It was a fun night! 

These three are just a couple months apart.

Ivy and Roxie

Patrick with Cruiz

Baby Bourne

Roxie, Hudson, Ivy

Grandma and Grandpa with all the Sullenger grand kids... just missing Preslee.And my favorite part was Cannon and Cruiz slept in the closet! Yes, call them Harry Potter, but it was pitch black, which they didn’t mind and slept like champs! I literally left wishing we had a closet to put them in each night :) 
They loved having their own little space.

Cannon was pretending to sleep in this picture, snoring and everything :)  

Giving goodnight hugs - and they bonked heads.

"Ow!"

 The last night we let these three have a sleepover. They were thrilled!

We had the best trip, and as I’m writing this, I’m feeling a little sad we aren’t going home for Christmas.

Here’s to new Christmas adventures and traditions!

Happy Holidays.

Page, Arizona

A few months ago, my dad called and asked if we wanted to run in a triathlon at Lake Powell at the end of October. We would have ten weeks to train. Pat and I said, yes! We knew it would be tight, but were up for the challenge. The night we registered, I got horribly sick. I literally laid on the couch for 3 1/2 weeks with the flu and bronchitis. By the time I felt well enough to work out, I just didn’t have time to train. – so I backed out…. (Next year!) Pat on the other hand, well he broke his toe in the middle of training. I’ve made fun of him, but the poor thing really did break his big toe which left his foot black and blue, and extremely swollen. (I had no idea a toe could do so much damage!)  So we were both out. But we still made the trip to cheer everyone else on.

My parents rented a large house in Page, AZ with an amazing view. Both of my brothers came, along with my Uncle Mark, and Uncle Randy (and all their families). The weather was low 60’s with wind, and too cold to boat, but we still had a blast.

First stop, The Grand Canyon! No one in our group had been there, so it made for a fun day. At the last stop I was taking pictures when I heard the people around me gasp… I turned right in time to see Pat grab Ledger and pull him down off the edge. He wasn’t close to falling, but it still scared everyone standing there. Other than that, the kids did pretty darn good.

(Cannon)

  
(Cruiz)

 

Ledger was giddy with all his cousins around. He had his very first sleepover and is still talking about it!
He played his little heart out with all his cousins.

(Ledger, Bree, Sophie, Charlize, Jack, Kyla)    

Alisha asked if I wanted to go tour Lower Antelope Canyon with her and my little brother, Rhett. She showed me one picture of a canyon wall, but I didn’t look into it any further. But with how excited she was I said, “Sure!” When we pulled in and I saw the desert, I was a little confused with what we paid to see…

We were assigned a guide, named Megan, (We loved her! If you go, I’d really see if you could request her). Our small group of 5 walked out into the desert and stopped when we came to the picture below. Just a little ways off is an opening with a few flight of stairs that you take down into the canyon. I was blown away with what was down there. It was a neat place to explore, and grateful my SIL brought her camera, she was busy taking pictures while Rhett and I explored and asked our guide questions about the Navajo Indians.

(This is the top of Lower Antelope Canyon. You would never guess there was anything below it.)

(Alisha, Me, Rhett, Megan our guide)

Saturday morning my Dad, Uncle Mark, and Uncle Randy all ran the sprint triathlon at the lake. It was a tough course (I was happy I didn’t try to muscle my way through it) and they all did great! I’m so impressed with my dad and uncle, they just started running sprint tri’s in their 50’s! And Mark rocks at these, he took 1st in his age group.

Last stop was Horseshoe Bend.
We decided not to take the kids since you have to look down over an edge to see it. It’s so neat to see what a river can do to the land around it. And I love how open it is in Page, AZ, it’s incredible. I’ve missed open spaces since moving to SLC, UT.

  
(Horseshoe Bend)

 
 
Thanks mom and dad for organizing it the trip, we really did have so much fun. Pat and I left motivated to get back in shape and sign up for a couple of races next year. And Ledger is still talking about Jack and all the fun they had together.

Page, AZ, we’ll be back. Hopefully next time, it will be for boating :)