Thanksgiving 2021

We spent Thanksgiving in Utah this year with the Perkins family. Ammon was even able to join us, which was so awesome! Mom and Dad hosted at their house. Tabbi was in charge of most of the food, which is her area of expertise! All my Utah siblings were able to join us at one point or another during the holiday, which was nice to see everyone. 

Fynn & I both were wearing Thanksgiving shirts.

My mom dressed up, too! She wanted to look
like a pilgrim & I think she did great!

As everybody was arriving, and dinner was being prepared, we played different games that I brought, like: Codenames and Taco Cat Goat Cheese Pizza. I personally had SO much fun, although I realize that playing games are not everybody's favorite thing to do!

Dinner was delicious, as always! All the traditional foods were there, plus a few new ones, to change things up!

After dinner, we ate pie and hung out! It was kind of nice to have unscheduled time to visit with each other and relax after our big meal. 

Brendan's taller than grandma now!

As family members slowly left, I took the opportunity pull out games once again. I taught mom and dad how to play "SkyJo". Dad doesn't particularly love learning new games, but he was a good sport. Mick and Jen and their family stopped by that evening (after spending Thanksgiving with Jen's family), and we played some more games, including "Not Parent Approved" (a card game that's similar to CAH for younger teens).

On Friday, we had grandma and grandpa to ourselves. The house was nice and quiet, and it was wonderful to be there alone with them. We played games together (like Chess and Dr. Mario), we took the boys across my parents' subdivision to play frisbee golf (and my mom joined us to watch them play it for the first time), and the boys decorated sugar cookies with grandma. 

That evening, Ryan and Amanda came up from North Ogden to visit. Ryan hadn't met my parents before. It took some finagling to get his wheelchair into the main floor of my parents' 3-story home, but we made it work! We visited for a while, and then we all went out to dinner to Sizzler. I recognized our hostess: she used to attend West J High School when I worked there, and I taught her younger sister! That was a fun moment when I figured out who she was! I hadn't eaten at Sizzler for at least ten years or more. The food was fine, but the company was fantastic! It was so fun to be able to eat out with my parents once again (they were very cautious during the pandemic)! It takes Ryan a little longer to eat than everyone else, so after dinner, my parents went back home, the boys walked next door and bowled a game by themselves, and Josh and I stayed with Ryan and Amanda until they were done. It was a delightful evening!

Ryan was sitting right under a recessed light that
made him look like an angel!

On Saturday morning, we left Utah to drive back to Salmon. It was so nice to have a family trip all together: it's so rare these days since Ammon has moved away to college. We realized this was probably going to be the last Thanksgiving that we would all be together to travel to Utah: Ammon's last internship is next fall and the twins are planning on leaving for their missions in the summer. I enjoyed this Thanksgiving so much as a result!