Our Thanksgiving Break

I think we had a pretty good Thanksgiving break. The kids had the whole week off from school. Ben and I were both working on Monday, so I "made" the kids go to the rec center after lunch - just something for them to get out and do. They rode their bikes (Lucy actually hitched a ride on the back of Miles' bike) down to the Bus Depot and took the bus to the rec center. Miles met up with some other climbing friends and spent the whole time climbing. Lucy found a friend from school and so the friend, Emmy, and she played in the pool mostly. Jonas found a couple of friends there as well and also swam for the most part. They all had a good time. I picked them up when I got off of work - around 4:30 or so.

I had to go back to work (this time at the hospital) at 10pm that night, so I slept for a few hours on Tuesday morning. I was crossing my fingers I would get called off that night and luckily I did. There was a special showing of "Frozen 2" on Tuesday afternoon and so I took all the kids (plus a friend of Lucy's) to it. It was pretty good and I think we all enjoyed it.

That night we had a special YM Program and Banquet. We had dinner, watched a slide-show of what the YM have been up to the past year, and then awarded prizes to the YM who had worked on their Rise Up O Men of God activities. It was a nice evening.

On Wednesday Ben got off early. The boys had their friend Aiden over and they worked on pumpkin pies (2 for the community dinner and 1 for us).

The boys working on the pies.

Then that afternoon we went to the newspaper building and "stuffed" Black Friday ads in to all the Thanksgiving papers. The mountain bike team was invited to help this year - the newspaper donated $500 to the team, so it was a service project of sorts. It seemed that it would take forever that first hour - the newspapers were hardly dwindling. But slowly but surely, we got it all done! It was kind of boring, kind of fun, and kind of cool. :) Seeing the printing machine was awesome - those papers were just rolling out like a roller-coaster ride. It was totally neat to see.

The boys went and saw "Ford vs. Ferrari" that night with Aiden. They really liked it!

Then it was Thanksgiving! Jonas, Emmy, and I did the local Turkey Trot. Our run was about 4.3 miles. I brought the two dogs along. Jonas started out with Brigham. Then ran back to Emmy and I and gave us Brigham, so I gave him Bella. But she was a little annoying, so I shouted at him a few minutes later to bring her back to us and so I ended up running with both dogs. Next year I hope I remember not to bring them both. It's just too many people and dogs (at least at the beginning when everyone's all bunched up together. Bella almost tripped several people! :( ). It was a great run and Jonas and Emmy did great. Jonas was a little frustrated as he wanted to run with Aiden and the dogs kind of got in his way. I'm not sure he would have been able to stick with Aiden, but I did feel a little badly for him. Emmy ran the whole time - the most she's ever run, really. We finished at 41:47 - a respectable time. :)

 My cute running partner.

 She lasted a few seconds running with the dogs. :)

 Ha, these cows got on the running path at the end. So funny.

All done!

Miles, Ben, and Lucy - and then Jonas who hopped in as soon as we got back from the run - delivered some community Thanksgiving meals to elderly/home-bound people. They only had 5 people, so it didn't take them too long. But Miles drove his car and they enjoyed it.

We ended up eating dinner around 5 - as I said it, "We put the dinner back in Thanksgiving dinner." We had a delicious dinner of turkey, rolls, cranberry salad, sweet potato/yam casserole, stuffing, and green beans. Everything tasted delicious. We watched "Peanut Butter Falcon" that night.

Then Friday morning came and Ben and I worked out at the rec center. When we came back, we got ready to go and cut down our Christmas trees (including one for the kids to put their sibling gifts under). We drove up to a spot and luckily there was some good snow to enjoy. But after about 15 minutes, it started blizzarding! It was crazy. It was windy and so it was difficult to see, etc. Poor Bella was shaking, but she did fine. :) But it was also fun and the kids had a blast. We found our trees and hauled them back to the truck.

 Jonas getting ready to chop down the kids' tree.

 The big tree for us!

 Cute Bella.

 Emmy helping haul back the small one.

 Can you find Ben?!

That afternoon, the boys went with some friends to see "Knives Out." As soon as they got back, Ben and I headed out to watch it. :) My friend Sarah and her husband came, too. I had her bring over her kids so they could all hang out together. (Aiden, their oldest at 15, was a little bummed he had to stay home and babysit his brothers. So I thought it would be fun for everyone to have them all at our house.) We all LOVED the movie. It's so good!

Miles turning in to a unicorn . . . After getting soaked with wet snow, his hair did this to him. :)

That's pretty much it. I started getting sick on Friday - sore throat, body ache, headache, etc. I felt pretty cruddy Saturday. But I think I am feeling a bit better today.

Now back to school and regular lives tomorrow! At least we had a good little reprieve.