Tuesday, December 1, 2015

Happy THANKSgiving!

Our Thanksgiving tale begins at the Denver International Airport, where all three of our guests would eventually make their way over the river and through the woods to Parker, CO. Wasn't this a lovely sunset to welcome Uncle Beans off the plane Saturday night? 
With Christmas carols blasting on the radio, and lots of snow still left on the ground, Lucy, Leah, and I collected our precious cargo (i.e. Taylor) and immediately headed for some dinner. 
Meanwhile Jonathan was chaperoning Zach at a laser tag birthday party across town, that he'd been invited to for his friend Emir (whom he'd spent most of the school year referring to as "Lumiere" like the candlestick from Beauty and the Beast). Zach was SO excited for this party!! He'd never played laser tag, so he was torn when he found out it was at the same time as Taylor's flight, but with a little finagling we figured it out and Zach had the time of his life!
The girls and I took a mustachioed Taylor to Dion's-- a new pizza/salad/sub chain restaurant that recently opened in Aurora, and got all caught up on the fun things Taylor is doing at college (especially his Mr. Toot party).
We had a great, relaxing Sunday complete with a snowball fight against the local deer, a snowy evening walk, some amazing chocolate brownie sundaes, and a re-watching of the new Jurassic Park movie. Bright and early Monday morning, I got to spend 4 hours at the hospital lab thanks to a previously failed glucose tolerance test. I had to be fasting, then drink a delicious orange elixir of 100 grams of sugar (I'll never touch Fanta again), and have my blood drawn 4 times over a 3 hour period while I sat and sat and sat. Wohooo! Thankfully the results came back just fine, and that's all that matters. We took Taylor to lunch at Chick fil A, and then picked Grandma Joanie up at the airport later that afternoon. Yay!
Tuesday was a whirlwind of busy-ness getting ready for turkey day! After a morning walk, we headed to Costco and Walmart for groceries, lunched at Kneaders, then pedicures for my mom and I at a local salon. We did some quick Christmas and birthday shopping at Target and then headed home to make dinner. Grandpa Tom Tom flew in that night and the guys picked him up. Yay for everyone making it without any problems! Wednesday morning we took a walk to get Tom Tom excited about officially being in Colorado.  
He made his famous pancakes for breakfast that morning, and got us all ready for the exorbitant amount of feasting that would take place over the next few days. It all started with those innocent pancakes...
We decided to spend the day downtown at the Denver Science Museum, as part of my Christmas present this year was to buy a pass. I have been languishing at home far too often with a very bored Leah since moving, and this will give me the perfect excuse to get out and go! It even got all 7 of us in!
The museum was PACKED, so we spent most of the time in the upper floors with all of the animals and Indians and natural history exhibits. This is us taking a little break from walking.
We had a great view of downtown Denver out one of the windows. Snow clouds were coming in, otherwise I'd bet you could see the Rockies.
Our favorite exhibit was the special one on Poison. Leah was fascinated by the three witches brewing a potion, and by a life-sized exhibit of Snow White eating the poisoned apple.
Miss Lucy found a little section devoted to Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince!
We finally finished up and decided it was time for lunch! We were starving from walking around all morning, and the sandwiches Grandma Joanie had packed really hit the spot! How did Grandpa get stuck with these two rascals??
We saved the best for last though by deciding to stop by VooDoo Doughnuts on the way home for a treat. Taylor had never been, and it was high time he tried a VooDoo.

We had a little impromptu doughnut party in the kitchen back at home. Can you say sugar rush?? Good thing I'd had that diabetes test done early on in the week, ha ha! 

We spent the rest of the afternoon cooking up a storm and preparing some of the sides for our Thanksgiving feast. After all that cooking, we decided we'd better head out to dinner at Crave in Castle Rock. I LOVE this place! So unique and yummy! Unfortunately they only had space in their outside seating area, so we were a little chilly...
I got the "Sin City" which had tempura fried sharp cheddar, bourbon-glazed onions, candied bacon, avocado, and lettuce and tomato. Yum!
Jon had to work all day Wednesday, but thankfully was able to meet us for dinner since it was right in Castle Rock. Zach is always happy to get his triple threat (burgers, fries, and a milkshake)-- and he is a boy after his Uncle Beans' heart.
We got snow Wednesday night, so lucky Jon and Taylor got to head to the ward Turkey Bowl to play football in some seriously freezing weather! Brrrr!
Grandma got our beautiful brined masterpiece into the oven, and we started work on everything else. There's seriously nothing better than smelling a delicious turkey roasting all morning long!
I had the kids work on some turkey cookies for me to take to my visiting teachees, although they may have ended up eating more than their fair share. Oh well. It kept them busy and out of trouble for at least a little while!
Our beautiful Thanksgiving Feast prepared mostly by Grandma Joanie! And it was AMAZING, as referenced by Taylor's elated cheesy face. Happy First Thanksgiving in Colorado, 2015!
Cute little eaters at the "kids table," doing their part to gobble up all that good food.
After dinner, Lucy and Zach prepared a Thanksgiving play for us to watch. Thanks to Lucy's wealth of historical knowledge, they recounted the first year the pilgrims spent in the New World, which was successful mostly thanks to their Indian friends Squanto and Chief Massasoit.
Finally we busted out the pies, and they did not disappoint. Banana Cream and Pumpkin were on the menu, and both were delicious. We really do have soooo much to be thankful for! So many blessings to reflect upon, and hearts full of thanks to our Heavenly Father who has given us so much. 
It had continued to snow most of the day, so before it got too dark good-hearted Uncle Taylor took the kids sledding while the rest of us just laughed and watched from the sidelines. They walked up to the hills behind our house which are perfect for sledding. 
The old crusty snow underneath the new snow was icy and rock hard, so although it was a pretty bumpy ride, Lucy, Zach, and Taylor did a "train" down the hill a couple times and laughed hysterically the whole time. They had so much fun with Taylor all week--playing soccer in the basement, playing the Wii, and just hanging out. Zach was his little shadow and Taylor was very patient with hikm constantly having to be right next to him!
Even WeeWee's got a turn with Taylor on the sled! She yells "Whee! Whee!" the whole way down. Pretty cute! That night my parents babysat so Jon and I and Taylor could go see "Mockinjay Part 2" at the movie theater. What a perfect day!
Friday morning dawned bright and snowy, and coincidentally was Grandpa Tom Tom's birthday! Happy Birthday Grandpa! The guys left on a special 60th birthday snow shoe expedition led by Jon up to Estes Park in the Rockies, and the kids and Grandma put a gingerbread house together while I worked on putting up the Christmas tree.
After a fabulous lunch of Thanksgiving leftovers, we ventured out onto the icy roads to check out Target and some of their Black Friday deals. Then we found a dollar theater (score!!) near where we'd be getting dinner and we took the kids to "Inside Out."   
While it was a gray and snowy day down here in the valley, the boys were soaking up the sun on what my dad calls a "Bluebird Day," with wide open blue skies, lots of fresh snow, and adventure right there for the taking. 
They hiked in about 3-4 miles to a frozen lake, had a picnic lunch, and then headed back out. 
Here's my hunky man now. He looks like a lethal snow ninja! 
They had beautiful weather (if not a little cold at 7 degrees for the high), and Jon has totally been bitten by the "bug." He's asked me about a hundred times when he can go again! I'm glad they got a little mountain retreat.
They met us at Mellow Mushroom for some birthday pizza after our movie let out. With BBQ chicken, Jamaican jerk, Caesar, and Thai pizza, there's nothing better than a little mellow from the South to help celebrate a birthday!
My mom planned a super fun 60th birthday party when we got back from dinner, which consisted of "Minute to Win It" games which made me feel like an idiot, but which my kids thought were awesome. Here I'm competing against Zach trying to move marshmallows from one bowl to the next using just a spoon between your teeth. Guh.

Trying to build the biggest pyramid using all the cups as fast as you can! Zach really took this one and ran with it and has been building plastic cup pyramids all over the house since Friday.

The tennis-ball-in-nylons-stuck-to-your-head-wrecking-ball challenge where you try to knock over as many cups as you can in 60 seconds. H-I-L-A-R-I-O-U-S. Then we danced some more to Mr. Toot. Good job on the party, Grandma!
Here's the Lone Wolf blowing out the candles on his birthday mud pie. We sure love you Grandpa! We hope all your camping/hiking/fishing/golfing/biking/cruising/vacationing wishes come true this year!
And since no visit from Tom Tom would be complete without a stop to Waffle House, Saturday morning found us bright and early eating hot waffles and drinking hot chocolate at our favorite trucker's paradise for brekky. 
Although Mt. Leah completely erupted into a full-fledged angry apocalyptic 3-year old red-faced tantrum on the way to the restaurant (over NOT wanting to eat waffles), once she'd finally settled down she was quite contrite and pleasantly told me, "I like waffles, Mommy." Thankfully my parents and I escaped the children while I got to teach a Body Pump class at the Colorado Athletic Club later that morning. Wohoo! 
We spent the rest of the afternoon at the Castle Rock Outlet Malls shopping the post Black Friday deals and getting excited for Christmas! Taylor was the first of our number to ditch us, and headed back to SLC/Provo late that afternoon. Little Zach was so sad to lose his best buddy and idol! 
Once Grandpa found his way home from the airport, he met us in downtown Parker for a free carriage ride to see the lights on Mainstreet. What a fantastic fun new tradition! 
One of the free carriages you could get tickets to ride through downtown.
Because there were so many of us, we rode in the wagon pulled by two HUGE draft horses, who were incidentally covered in jingle bells-- much to Leah's excitement. She has been singing "Jingle Bells" all week! She kept saying that this was just like Cinderella's carriage, and other than it not being a pumpkin, and only being 20 degrees outside, she was right!
Brrrr! Cold but so festive and fun!
Our view of Mainstreet with all of the pretty Christmas lights.
We had time for one last meal together so we finally decided on hibachi since I had a pretty good coupon I was needing to use at Mt. Fuji. My kids had never been to hibachi, and neither had Jon or I since Philadelphia-- and it was fun to have them cook right in front of us (although Leah was terrified of all the fire)!
Zach is crazy and loved trying to catch all the food in his mouth-- including this "Baby Sake" which was really just Sprite. What a nut!
These two had a blast watching the hibachi show and loving their noodles and shrimp!
One last dinner out with Grandma and Grandpa. We can't thank them enough for coming to visit us, as we know distance and time always make it hard, but we sure loved getting some time to spend over the busy holiday season!
Mom and Dad enjoying the wild hibachi show! I had to teach Sunday School the next morning, so although I'd been completely procrastinating putting together my lesson, it finally caught up to me and I spent the rest of the evening working on that. Thanks to my mom for finding me some great videos to share, and my dad for being a story-teller extraordinaire, it went really well. One more lesson down before the Book of Revelations, ha!
The rest of our Sunday was bittersweet because Grandma and Grandpa had to fly out that night. We finished trimming the tree, thanks to three very, very excited children.
They loved getting into all of the ornaments and decorations and seeing all of the ones they'd made at school in years past. 
Trimming the tree with my helpers! We are officially ready for Christmas. We said goodbye to Grandma and Grandpa amidst ANOTHER snow storm, and then headed to bed, back to school and our "normal" routine with lots of fun Thanksgiving memories to look back on.
This little girl wandered into bed with us around 2 a.m. that night, all tuckered out from one jam-packed, feast-heavy, snow-covered, family-fun Thanksgiving Week!