NOVEMBER BRINGS LOTS OF FAMILY FOR THANKSGIVING

 The highlight of November is always Thanksgiving, especially when family comes to Heber. This year we were excited that both Andrea's and Jon's families came to join us. Andrea, Casey, Jillian, and Lydia came in on Wednesday evening while the BYU students came up on Tuesday night. Wednesday was spent baking rolls and pies. Allison headed the effort of making four pies - sour cream lemon, key lime, chocolate mint, and chocolate French silk. I had already made a pumpkin and apple pie so we had enough pies to even take to our neighbors who were home alone for the holiday. They were all good except for the key lime which was a little tart because of the amount of lime zest added. 

Thanksgiving day brought Jon and Mindi to Heber along with Clark, Olivia, Carly, and Jaron. Of course, the turkey dinner was wonderful except for the underdone extra turkey breast. I had bought it because I could only find  a 17 pound turkey for 16 people. I had stuffed the turkey breast but didn't add additional baking time to account for that, hence, it was underdone. Every bit of the 17 pound turkey was eaten as were most of the potatoes and stuffing. I cooked the turkey breast another hour and saved it for turkey and rolls on Friday evening. We loved the chance to visit with everyone.

Two tables set

Before dinner fun with a puzzle.....

......and playing Ticket to Ride

Because Todd and Kailee and family couldn't join us for Thanksgiving, (Kailee's family was in town) we had everyone up for a sourdough waffle breakfast on Saturday. This time Jon brought Braydon and Jaiden along with Olivia and Clark. It was wonderful to catch up with a couple of Jon's boys. Lincoln was a big hit as most everyone hadn't seen him for months. The breakfast of waffles, bacon, and scrambled eggs was a hit and every thing was devoured. We were glad everyone stayed around for a couple of hours to visit as the holidays always go by so fast and, all too soon, family leaves for home. This year we were grateful the Westovers stayed a full week. There was a read through of Charlotte's musical on December 1 so everyone, except for Jillian, stayed till after that performance.

The girl's special way to say good bye, waving
to us all the way up the driveway.

Other family news includes an update on Aubrey. She completed her time at the MTC in Mexico, which she loved. She, then, flew to her mission in Argentina where she met her mission president and her companion. So far her emails have been very upbeat even though she has found that the language learned in the MTC doesn't match the local dialects spoken in Argentina. That'll all come soon enough.

Aubrey with her mission president and his wife

Aubrey's companion and trainer

In front of the temple where they were able to
spend some time this month

The scariest family news was when we got a call from Todd to tell us that Lincoln was in the hospital on his one year old birthday. He was having a hard time breathing, even turning blue as Todd was putting him in his car seat to take him to urgent care. When that happened, Kailee held him while Todd drove straight to the emergency room of the Provo hospital. He tested positive for COVID and also had croup. The doctors reassured Todd and Kailee that this was all treatable but it was hard to see him so listless. He was given breathing treatments and had to remain in the hospital for a couple of days.  We were glad when we were told he was doing better and able to come home.

So sick

Feeling better at times

Because it was his birthday, he woke up to
these gifts from the medical staff.

I want out of here!!!!

Going home finally

We were able to celebrate Lincoln's birthday the following Sunday at our home. He was especially excited to eat, or should I say demolish, the homemade hostess cupcake. 

BYU football officially ended this month. We attended the final home game on a Saturday where the temperature didn't get much above 30 degrees. We won the game which made sitting in the freezing cold somewhat worth it. The season ended with 7 wins and 5 losses. Not the best season they've ever had. We worry about what the win loss record will be next year when they join the Big 12 league. We may not even buy season tickets. It's too hard to see them lose.

After sitting in the freezing cold, we went to dinner at 5 Guys and then attended a basketball game in the Marriot center. Thankfully it was inside and warmer. We won that game but the team doesn't look that great this year. There's lots of new players so hopefully they will begin to gel together and play better with less turnovers.

A BLUE Santa - Cougar style

And then there's our responsibilities as Ward Activity Chairs. The Sunday after our Halloween activity, we had a fireside featuring Nate and Nicole Sargent. They recently returned from South Korea where Nate was the mission president. They spoke about their experiences and the joys of missionary work. It was a great fireside and we all left totally inspired to spread the good news of the gospel.

Nate and Nicole with the son of a senior couple
that served with them. Nicole is wearing a
Korean wedding dress.

As soon as this fireside was over, we had a meeting to begin planning our ward Christmas party, with only about 3 weeks to pull it off. We called an adhoc committee and they were very helpful in coming up with ideas. Before our meeting, we did a lot of running around to have some ideas for the dinner. This included going to lunch at Goochy Goos to sample their barbecue pork and mac and cheese. We were glad we did because it was not good and very expensive. We checked with Lee's to see what they could do for us and found they only has pressed ham available. We then called Jake Edwards who had done ham for a Christmas party that Todd and Kailee were in charge of a few years back. We wanted to find out what ham he used. He told us he bought Carver ham which is ham cut from the bone but not pressed. We found these types of hams at Costco for a reasonable price. At the meeting, it was decided the theme would be a birthday party for Jesus complete with balloons and birthday cakes. It was decided the dinner would be ham, baked potatoes, green salad, and rolls with birthday cake and hot chocolate for dessert. Everyone took an assignment, leaving us to order all the dinner items. All month since that meeting we have been running around securing what would be needed to pull off a wonderful party. 

The delicious Master Carve hams from Costco

Amid all this craziness, Paul and I were asked to give talks on the second Sunday. We were asked to use Elder Uchtdorf's conference talk. 'Jesus Christ is the Strength of Youth,' which outlined the new For the Strength of Youth pamphlet available to the youth. I concentrated on his talk and Paul talked more about the new emphasis of the 'For the Strength Youth' pamphlet. Paul told some personal stories that I'm sure will be remembered for a long time, especially his 'rooster' story. We got lots of good comments afterwards. The problem is that we were both sick. Paul had been struggling with a cough and I had a fever and cold. With the Lord's help anything is possible.

This is one of the quotes I used in my talk.
Amazing that this was given in 1982. What
was going on back then was nothing like what our
young people are facing today.

The last item to talk about this month would be the elections. What was promised to be a big red wave with conservative Republicans sweeping the House and the Senate, turned out to be hardly a ripple. We did manage to take back the House by a small margin but we didn't make any gains to take the Senate. The Democrats are just better at cheating than the Republicans. Anywhere there was a close race, the Democrats seemed to come up with more votes to count. So reminiscent of the 2020 elections where votes were still being counted a week after election night and the Democrats finding more and more votes to count that were almost 100% Democrat votes. We may never have an honest election again in this country. The same states were in play as in 2020 - Arizona, Nevada, Georgia, and Pennsylvania. Too sad.

NOT!!!!
It was barely a red trickle

This is good news. 

Loved this. 
Wish the politicians in Washington DC
would abide by the constitution.

An now for a couple of memes to end this month's epistle.....

AND THAT'S A WRAP FOR NOVEMBER