Thanksgiving!

This year we was the first Thanksgiving that we did not spend with our family. Since we are headed up to Utah and Idaho next week Joe and I decided that we would do better to save our money  (and wear and tear on our car) and just stay here in Alpine for Thanksgiving. We were invited to spend the day with some of our friends from church and it was truly a wonderful holiday! We really enjoyed it. Joe dropped the kids and I off at the R.'s house at 9:00am and then drove over to the park to play some turkey ball with the men and young men from our church. He really impressed those fellows with his football prowess, they were talking about getting creamed by Bro. Christensen the whole rest of the day, haha. Way to go honey!

The kids and I visited with our friends and then helped get everything set up so that we could enjoy Thanksgiving dinner at 12:00. I baked two pies for the occasion, a pecan pie for joe and a chocolate cherry cake/pie (so delish!). I received the Lion House cookbook from my brother-in-law Jonathan last year for Christmas and it really has the BEST pie recipes! Including an Awesome recipe for pie crust. I absolutely LOVE this book! and Thanksgiving was a perfect opportunity to bust it out and pour over all of the drool worthy recipes. 

There were about 20 people who shared in Thanksgiving dinner and so it was a noisy, cheery affair. My kids even behaved themselves and didn't spill too much. haha. After dinner we sprawled out on their couches and had naps and then set up a game of Rook with the adults. It was a really great day!

The next morning we packed up Jadyn and McKay and drove the two hours south to the Big Bend National Park. The R.'s came with us and we got adjourning campsites and had a blast "hiking" to the hot springs and playing/fishing in the river and then enjoying hot chocolate, and the games sardines and B.S. Jadyn had such a good time playing with the other kids and running in and out of our tent. She was pretty bummed when we had to take it down the next morning. What a fun couple of days!