Utah for Thanksgiving

We took the opportunity to be with family this year for Thanksgiving.  The drive there is always long and hard, but it was especially made so this time around by a huge snowstorm from Evanston to Salt Lake City that delayed us two hours.  When we finally arrived to the house Jason's family was staying at we discovered what was keeping Noah quietly preoccupied for those last two hours.

Thanksgiving means chocolate turkeys for breakfast, no matter where we are.  

Leah got one too, but she was far more interested in holding her two new cousins.  Penny and June were so adorable!  We even got a picture of Grandma will all seven of her grandkids.

The house that we stayed in was perfect for so many of us, and the kids especially loved the backyard.  We need one of these at our house!

We even remembered to take a picture of (almost) everyone before we headed to my parent's home for the evening.  

My family has a long-standing Thanksgiving evening tradition of watching White Christmas while eating turkey sandwiches, shrimp dip and chocolate pie.  I miss it every year, and this year I was so excited to be part of it!  We haven't spend Thanksgiving at home since we moved from Utah in 2009, so we tried to fit in every bit of tradition and family togetherness we could. And, of course, I didn't take a single picture of it.  But it was wonderful to be there again! 

This picture is just missing Aaron and Kirsten.  These are my brothers and sisters!

I'm not sure when this happened, or how I feel about it!

We took the kids to BYU one afternoon, and they loved it.  We live in a state divided by Iowa State University and the University of Iowa, and we needed to remind them that we are cougars!

We trekked all over campus, telling them what each building was for and some of the many, many memories we had in each place, from the physics building where Leah and I once participated in a health study to the underground library, where Daddy turned in his masters thesis just hours before Adam was born.  The Wilk, where we grabbed many a breakfast on the go, to the university administration building, where the kids were shocked to hear that I once worked.  (They are shocked every time they learn that I once had a job outside the home!)

Noah fixated on the huge 'Y' on the mountain and the bell tower, and Adam kept asking, "So, how do you get into college?  How can I go here?"  I think we've got some cougs in our future!

I couldn't be in Utah without sneaking in a visit with Bea!  We always have the best visits.

And the popcorn and fudge! Church with my family, a "cupcake" date with Al, the children's museum with cousins. shopping with my mom... it was all wonderful!

And far too soon, it was time to head home again.  We were anxious about leaving at our usual 4 AM, so we pushed our departure back to 5 and still had a long, hard trek back home.  Snow, ice, fog, horrible wind, and we have never been so glad to see our home sweet home again.  But it was wonderful to spend the time that we did with the people we love most!