More Birthdays and Thanksgiving

The month of November is full of Birthdays: Mom, me, Ashley, Alan, Grandpa P., many cousins, uncles, aunts, and friends.  On top of all the birthday festivities this year, Alan & I hosted our first Thanksgiving for my family. 

Ash, Craig, and Ellie came down on Monday evening to arrive ahead of the supposed "blizzard".   Tuesday was Ashley's 26th birthday...the day the blizzard was supposed to hit Utah.  

My work went into "official emergency mode" on Tuesday afternoon sending nonessential staff home, calling additional staff in, and mandating elective areas close down.  Dialysis rearranged their entire schedule to meet patients needs with the anticipation that we would be unable to get to the hospital in the morning.  


Of course, me being the preparedness Nazi, I made Alan fill our 55 gallon water barrel and bring the cat in the house.  I got home right before the blizzard of the century was supposed to hit and we watched and waited.  


The snow really started to come down, but it wasn't anything like the forecasters had said.  In fact, because it was Ashley's birthday, we all piled into the Jeep and ventured out into the storm to go to GoodWood for some BBQ. 

We didn't have the right number of candles for her 26, so we improvised. 

Classic Alan face. 

Storm of the century, my butt!  The storm hit a lot harder in Idaho.  The roads were closed until late Wednesday afternoon.  Mom, Dad, Chris, Anne, and the boys came down Thursday morning. 

We had room for everyone (8 adults and 5 kids) and the dinner turned out awesome! (I didn't even think about getting a picture of the spread!!)  We had so much food!  There were 4 pies, 3 veggies, turkey, potatoes, gravy, stuffing, and home made rolls.  Yum!

Kiddos watched a lot of shows and played Nintendo.

They both look like they are in a trance!

 The adults chilled and watched football.  

Then they kids went a little crazy dancing with some butt shaking and spanking.

After Thanksgiving was over, we celebrated another birthday (a little early)....Happy Birthday Alan!

Again, not the right number of candles for the pie....Yum chocolate pie!

All and all, it was a great week.  Best of all, I didn't have a melt down or freak out because something wasn't perfect.  I think we might have to have everyone at our house again and this time have Kenny, Carrie, Noah, and Jack present too!