This Thanksgiving was a bit different then most in the past. We traveled to St. George to spend it with Ryan's family. We arrived on Wednesday and on Thursday fixed the traditional Thanksgiving dinner except for the turkey. I was hoping to show Ryan and Katie how to cook a turkey as they had never cooked one before. Katie went out to buy a turkey and came home with a turkey that was already cooked. She paid $8.00 a pound for it so the turkey cost over $80.00. A raw 10 pound turkey would be maybe $15.00 at the most. We couldn't stuff the already cooked turkey so I made stuffing, wrapped it in tin foil, and baked it in the oven. It was surprisingly good. The already cooked turkey didn't have much drippings for a gravy so Ryan bought a package of turkey gravy mix along with 3 bottles of turkey gravy at $6.00 a bottle!!!! That was an expensive Thanksgiving dinner, for sure. One positive was that we didn't have to get up real early to put a raw turkey in the oven as the already cooked one only took 2 hours to heat up. This was a good thing as we had to be leaving for Las Vegas by 4:00 to make it to a BYU basketball tournament.
The already cooked turkey
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| The girls and Nathan made the rolls and the pies |
We left St. George with Ryan's family and traveled to Las Vegas where checked into our Worldmark condos. The basketball tournament was being held at the Mandalay Bay resort. There were 4 teams competing in the tournament and BYU played the second game of the night. They won that game quite handily. Friday, we just hung out at the condos till the final games that night. BYU fought hard to come out on top to win the tournament. It was an exciting time, especially when Coach Pope invited the BYU fans to come down on the court to take pictures with the players. Nathan was flying high after he got pictures with the coach and some of his favorite players.
The crowd coming down onto the floor 
With Robinson 
Coach Pope 
With 'Foose' as the crowd refers to him
We drove back to Ran's home in St. George the next morning where we watched a BYU football game. They lost in double overtime which was very disappointing. With that loss, the team did not qualify for a bowl game as they had 5 wins and 5 loses. Not the best year for them. That night we went to see Grace perform in a new musical of the Christmas Carol. It was a performance with mainly a young people in the cast but it was an incredible show. Grace sang a solo and was very good in her part of an old girlfriend of Scrooge. I haven't really enjoyed the movies I've seen of the Christmas Carol as they are pretty dark. This show added music to the script and a bit of comedy which made it very enjoyable. We were glad we could see Grace in this role.
Sunday after church, Katie's sister's family joined us for a leftover turkey dinner. Thankfully Ryan barbecued some chicken tenders to supplement the meal as by that time the leftover turkey was pretty dry. Later that evening, we watched, the family get out all their Christmas ornaments and put them on the tree. A family tradition for them has been for each of the children to get a new Christmas ornament that signifies something important to them for the year. That night each of the children told us about their ornament before they put them on the tree.
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| The finished tree |
We came home on Monday to face a ward Christmas party which we were in charge of. Luckily, we had a wonderful committee who really helped us. As a committee, we decided on a breakfast with the theme 'Christmas Morning Magic.' It was to take place on Saturday, the second of December, thus the week we got back we had a lot to do to pull it off. One of the stresses was finding a Santa. After several people turned us down, we pleaded with Casey to be our Santa. Gratefully he agreed. Andrea and Casey were flying in for Charlotte's production of Hattie's Echo so he would be here for our breakfast. We borrowed a Santa suit for him which fit him perfectly. We were so grateful for his willingness to do this as it had been a big worry for us.
Paul trying on the beard and wig. 
We got a kick out of Casey trying on the
Santa suit. The beard and wig were very itchy.
He was such a good sport.
Other happenings of the month included celebrating Lincoln's 2 year old birthday. He loves the movie 'Cars' so that's what his cake was all about - Lightning McQueen, of course. He loved it as well as his presents which were all 'Cars' related. Now he will have some new boy toys to play with when he come to our home.
We attended a funeral for my uncle Elliot at the first of the month. He was 100 years old when he passed away. It was a beautiful tribute him as all of his 12 children took part in the funeral. We were able to meet up with some of our cousins which we don't see very often. The Fullers and the Bulkeleys came, too.
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| With our cousin Marilee |
An exciting thing that happened was going to the temple with Kim and Eric Howe when he received his endowments. It was such a beautiful thing to see him so thrilled at finally being in the temple. His comment was, 'You mean I can come back as often as I want?' We all went to dinner afterwards to celebrate.
Speaking of temples, one Friday, this month we attended the Orem temple open house. After working our shift at the Provo temple we decided to take our chances of getting into the Orem temple open house. We couldn't figure out how to make an appointment. At the time we went, we could walk right in. It was a self guided tour which allowed us to spend time where we wanted. The temple is magnificent, especially the Celestial room. We sat for a while in there just to take it all in and feel of the spirit of the temple. We were so glad we could see it before it is dedicated.
Then there was BYU sports - We attended the last home football game of the season. It was on a cold Saturday morning and hard to get excited to sit through another game after the dismal performance displayed at the last game at which we left at half time. Yes, we lost again. A pretty sad season but one to be expected with it being our first year in the Big 12 conference.
Half time at the game played on Veteran's day 
Even some fireworks to complete the half time show 
At the last game
On a positive note.....Freddy's Steak Burger restaurant is now opened in Provo. We love Freddy's burgers and have waited a long time for one to come to Utah County. We often would go to the Freddy's when we were in Salt Lake as there are several there and now we finally have one a bit closer.
And now for some fun memes......
And then there's the ones that give us pause to think:
Then there was this entry in my calendar that I found just today.......
So sweet
