Catch up--Thanksgiving

This year for Thanksgiving, my parents came out from TN and rented a ranch house in New Harmony (near Cedar City). With all five kids in Utah, plus their three adorable grandchildren, they decided they should just come to us!

The ranch was amazing. The house slept all of us comfortably and was stocked with toys for the kids and lots of board games, had a hot tub and fire pit and grill, and that's not even starting on the grounds. It was a working ranch with sheep, goats, pigs, chickens, turkeys, rabbits, and the two cutest kittens EVER. Plus a river with three huge treehouses and a fire pit and a party barn with a pool table, air hockey, etc. 

So yeah, we had a good time. I was worried about cooking Thanksgiving dinner for a big group (there were 19 of us for dinner) in an unfamiliar kitchen, but it went really smoothly and the kitchen had everything we needed.

Highlights were playing bartender (Josh is the best at it), roasting hot dogs by the river, and watching the most epic home video EVAAAAAAA! We found one of the owner's personal home videos (dangerous, I know) and decided to watch it. It turned out the be a wedding from 1993 with the best wedding gown and bridesmaids dresses you've ever seen, plus the most awkward couple you've ever seen (no eye contact during the ceremony and a side hug instead of a kiss. Sad, right?) I kept expecting it to turn into a snuff film or something.

These two little kittens (Tempe named them Smoky and Scout) followed us around constantly and loved to be cuddled and carried around. They weren't allowed in the house but they sat on the deck watching on and one of them tried to jump through the window and smashed into it while we were watching a movie.

Treehouses look cool from the ground but are kind of scary when you're actually in them.

They even wrote "The Allan Family" on the sign at the gate!

Lots of snakes in New Harmony.

Like I said, working ranch--the sweet owners told Tempe and Helena they could collect eggs every morning. We even ate some!

New favorite Allan family picture. Notice Helena's little bum in the top right quadrant. Yep, she's always talking about her bum so there it is.

Quiet time baskets: Thanksgiving

I should have posted this basket last week, before Thanksgiving--in case any of you needed some ideas to keep the kiddos occupied while the Thanksgiving cookfest was going on!Our Thanksgiving quiet time basket was simple, but fun. In fact, I'm going to keep it out for another week or so, because the girls really like it. I included a book by Tomie dePaola that I got at Seagull Book for $1. Then I raided my girls' play kitchen for Thanksgiving-esque food. I ended up with two green plates and a wooden Melissa and Doug crate with a turkey leg, corn on the cob, a baked potato, a roll, and a piece of cherry pie. I also included an old kitchen timer and two empty spice containers that I added dry beans to (mostly for Juno's benefit, but the older girls liked shaking it, too)

Need ideas on how to play with this?

We turned the basket on its side and used it as our pretend oven. We shook the "seasonings" all over the food, put them in the pretend oven, and then set the pretend timer. While our food was "cooking", we read the Thanksgiving book and pointed out what foods in the book we ate at our own Thanksgiving feast. This is also a great opportunity to talk about table manners or food groups!

Want more ideas? Check out the rest of my quiet time baskets!

gobble gobble

Happy Thanksgiving!

We've always gone to my lovely mother-in-law's house for Thanksgiving, but this year I decided to tackle the feast on my own.

I was pretty nervous about the turkey, but I'm happy to report that everything turned out great! I used a meat thermometer and an oven bag and rubbed it with olive oil, garlic, rosemary, onion salt, and pepper, and the turkey was juicy, crispy and perfect.

Here I am with my first turkey! (and my trashed kitchen)

Don't I have the cutest husband?

Jason's big job was carving the turkey.
Along with the bird, I made mashed potatoes and gravy, sweet potatoes, stuffing, the world's best dinner rolls, spinach salad, carmelized green beans, pasta salad and the most delicious cranberry sauce ever. We also had spinach and artichoke dip in bread bowls with fresh veggies, cream cheese and raspberry walnut chutney with crackers, sweet potato fries and cranberry mustard, and sugared cranberries. Yeah, that's a lot of food. We have soooooo much left over!! I made everything (but the gravy) from scratch and spread it out over most of the week. I like cooking, but that's a lot to do all in one day!
My two brothers and my sister have been spending the holidays with us and it's been fun. I'm so happy they live nearby--we have so much fun together! Not to brag, but we are a very witty, clever, funny family.
And here's a short list of what I'm grateful for: Jason. Tempe. Helena. Juno. my parents. Jason's parents. All of our siblings. the rest of our family. our house. Jason's job. America. food. the internet. a warm house. the Gospel of Jesus Christ. freedom. enough money for our needs and almost all of wants. good friends. a great neighborhood and neighbors. Disneyland. changing seasons. my education.

planes, trains, and automobiles

Happy Thanksgiving!!

Thanksgiving has always been a favorite holiday of mine. Spending a day with family and good food is my kinda holiday. And like my friend Christie said, spending a day in gratitude for the blessings we have is the perfect segue to the Christmas season.

I have always had so much to be thankful for. My life has been so filled with joy and comfort and I am truly grateful for my blessings. Just to name a few: my husband and my kids, my parents and siblings and Jason's parents and siblings, our beautiful first house and our wonderful community, the health of my family, and my husband's job in this tough economy. And while I am grateful for those things, I know that they are not necessarily all lasting blessings, and so my gratitude for my Savior and the Gospel is even greater.

And now, my most memorable Thanksgiving story.

Thanksgiving 2005: Jason and I had been married for almost 8 months and living in Laramie since August. We were excited for Thanksgiving break so we could go back to Utah to visit friends and family, eat at all of our favorite restaurants, and go shopping (those are all things that Laramie lacked for us at that point). We enjoyed a great Thanksgiving weekend and grudgingly left on Sunday morning to get back to Laramie. I had work in the morning and Jason had a paper due (one that he hadn't actually finished yet). The drive was going fine until we got to Rawlins, which is only about 90 miles west of Laramie. That's when we noticed this:

(except the one we saw said "Return to Rawlins" and the lights were flashing)

Ok, this was our first experiences with I-80 closing, and to be honest, we didn't really believe it would be closed, so we kept driving until we got to the gate that blocked freeway access. Then we finally turned around, ate lunch at Subway, and waited in vain for the freeway to reopen. We finally accepted the fact that it wasn't reopening any time soon, so we started to look for a hotel room. Which was really fun, because I was wearing pajama pants and flip flops and getting out to slosh through slushy parking lots to hotel offices, only to find out that they hadn't turned on their No Vacancy lights even though there weren't any rooms left. We had tried about six hotels with no luck when a car pulled across the parking lot exit, blocking us in. The driver got out and ran over to our car, and when Jason rolled down the window, the guy told us that he and his girlfriend managed to get a room at this particular fleabag motel, but they had charged them the rack rate and they were looking for someone to share it with them and split the cost. We didn't see any other options, so we told them we would.

They took us up to the room: one bed. They showed us the receipt: $140. This was a fleabag dump, folks. So we handed them a check for $70 and Jason got started on his paper while I watched Dude, Where's My Car? with our roommates.

It was awkward.

They decided to go out for dinner, and while they were gone, we discovered the roads had reopened, so we wrote them a note and left. Luckily Jason had been able to finish his paper, so we considered the $70 money well spent. It took us about three hours to go the 90 miles from Rawlins to Laramie, and it was white-knuckle all the way.

This was not our last experience getting stranded while living in Laramie, but it was by far our most memorable.

Goodness gracious, I am glad that we don't have to worry about driving conditions this weekend!!