Thankful...

I meant to post this on Thanksgiving but I didn't get around to it. For Thanksgiving we had dinner, actually it was more like lunch since it was at 1:00, with Michael's family. His immediate family (parents, siblings, nieces & nephews) is up to like 23 people now- hope I added that up right. They reserved the church (which I swear was my idea years ago) and some of his extended family came- on his mom's side. I don't know a lot of his extended family, but it was fun having like 50+ people altogether. Kinda made me think of that saying "All because two people fell in love.." when I looked around the room at all the people who are here today thanks to his grandparents.

There was a ton of good food. Everyone brought side dishes and there were a few different turkeys (Nathan did a smoked turkey with fancy wood chips in a smoker) and there was also a yummy pineapple ham. Mic's dad made his famous scalloped potatoes (or as my family & a lot of Utahan's call it- "Funeral Potatoes".) I did miss my absolute favorite, which is mashed potatoes and gravy. We may have to make our own mini thanksgiving dinner soon, so I can have some. Seriously, I could just about eat my weight in mashed potatoes.

My mom and Mayson also came to our thanksgiving dinner. Originally she had wanted to have a second dinner, but it seemed like so much work to make a whole thanksgiving dinner for just the four of us (Laura and Alex were with Alex's family). So I invited her to our dinner instead. Not to mention I really don't love the multiple thanksgiving dinners, you end up eating two small meals instead of just really enjoying one large one.

My dad drove to Seattle (and my grandma flew) for Thanksgiving, and I was super jealous. I love Seattle, and all my extended relatives that live there.

That evening we met Laura and Alex at my mom's to play games and eat snacks (as if we hadn't consumed enough calories already..) I wanted to play Apples to Apples because I always win that game, which Mic hates. He says there isn't strategy involved, and its just by "luck" if you win. We ended up playing some card game called 5 kings (I think?) that my mom loves. Most of us had never played. And seriously I lost SO bad. It didn't help that Mic kept seeing my hand, and not discarding the cards I needed. Oh and that I don't have a very good poker face and kept "thinking out loud". Overall it was a way fun day spent with great family. I definitely have a lot to be thankful for.

Us stuffed after our delicious Thanksgiving meal

Mayson downloaded some racing car game to my phone, and my nephews loved being with him! Little kids love Mace. (pictured are 4 of my 6 nephews).

Some Things I’m Thankful for, in no particular order:

• · My husband
• · Crazy pets, Jack & Sophie
• · Family
• · Friends
• · Modern conveniences, i.e. dishwasher, washing machine, dryer, cell phone, blow dryer, computer, etc.
• · Photographs
• · Hot showers
• · Our home
• · Reliable vehicles
• · Our jobs
• · Diet Coke
• · Modern medicine
• · Books
• · Good health
• · Vacations
• · Music
• · Education
• · Clean water
• · Freedom
• · Beautiful Mountains
• · The Ocean

·

Jack ordered a swimming pool..

I had a lot of things I planned on getting done today on my day off. None of which involved cleaning up flooded sewer water in my laundry room. Gross!

Let me start from the beginning.

I’m catching up on blogs upstairs when I overhear Mic talking on the phone in our basement. The only part I catch is “… 3 inches of standing water in the basement...” I’m like “Wait what?!” I hurry downstairs & find the laundry room flooded.

His brother (who he’d been on the phone with) comes over. He lives like 45 minutes away so it’s not exactly close, to have to drop what he’s doing & come over.

The two of them determine that this disaster needs professionals to fix. I call my dad, who calls his plumber friend who owns a company. Three hours later the plumber people come out and mess with the pipes/drains. Apparently the tree roots of the big tree in our front yard got in the sewer pipe that runs from the street to our house- clogged it & then the drain in my laundry room backed up and overflowed into the laundry room. So they took some fancy machine that went through the pipes and broke up the tree roots. I love the big tree in our front yard. It shades the house & yard. But unfortunately the roots are probably always going to be a problem and will grow back/overtake the pipes again.

I mopped up the mess with towels and then went to start the washing machine (which we’d moved to get to the drain in the first place) when it started making some weird clanking noise. Of course this disaster couldn’t just be taken care of already. So Mic took apart the washing machine & found the part that had been loosened & fixed it.

The only good thing that came from this mess was that it got me to clean the basement. I clean when I’m stressed out. And while Mic & Keith were trying to figure out the problem, I decided that I would clean the basement. The basement freaks me out, so I try and spend as little time down there as I have to. But I vacuumed the stairs, and the entire basement- including taking the hose thing out and going along ALL the baseboards. Our family room is mostly used for storage, and looking around at all the stuff in boxes on the floor, it made me SO glad that the water mess was all contained to the laundry room, and hadn’t gone everywhere. My stuff would’ve been ruined. (The floors in the family room & laundry room are painted concrete- so it could’ve easily ended up flooding out into the family room).

So that was my day pretty much. Hopefully tomorrow goes better. Although the plan for tomorrow is to clean out/organize the garage so my car will fit better in it for winter. Aren’t you so jealous?

All I need to clean up this mess are my pink galoshes, my pink flashlight, and a large fountain Diet Coke.

Part of the mess & the garden hose- not sure on the details, since I was busy cleaning.

Keith messing with the drain.

HAPPY 18TH BIRTHDAY MAYSON!

Happy 18^th Birthday Mayson!

How time flies! I still remember meeting you at the hospital and telling mom and dad to “not even bring it home... “ since I had wanted a little sister not a little brother.

But now I’m glad to have a little brother. Mace is so funny, easy going, loves playing the guitar and football, thinks he is a “body builder” and is always flexing his muscles. Love you Mace!

We all went to PF Changs for dinner for Mace’s birthday. PF Changs is my favorite and since Mace didn’t care where we went I chose where we were going.

The food is always SO good. I love their lettuce wraps, Chang’s spicy chicken, Mongolian beef, crispy honey shrimp, and Dan Dan noodles. For dessert everyone got their own mini dessert shot. And with 8 to choose from, everyone got something different. My mom and I both wanted cheesecake, so we just decided to get a whole slice of the New-York Style Cheesecake, instead of two minis. We also shared the Banana Spring Rolls dessert. I don’t even know if I love bananas, but this deep fried dessert is pretty good.

Thanks mom and dad!

Fancy Cheesecake. Deliciousness

Got Dessert?

Me & Mic

Me & mom with some of the desserts

Weirdo!

Mom & Mace

Laura & Alex

Laura & Dad

Mace & our cute Grandma

PAC 12 BABY!

I LOVE football games, and I love the University of Utah.

Saturday we went to the Utah vs Oregon State game. It was the blackout game. Somehow we always end up going to the blackout game every year. Not on purpose, but the date of the game ends up working out well or something. And every year it is the game right before or on Halloween. Which means it’ll be FREEZING!

Regardless it was way fun. Since I’d stood in line super early the Saturday before to get student tickets (thanks to Rob & Laura for letting me use their I.D’s ) I ended up getting WAY good seats in the student section.

Before the game we went to Pat’s BBQ for dinner. I’d never been but had heard good things about it. Don’t let the look of the outside/neighborhood stop you from going- it looks ghetto and is in South Salt Lake, but their food was way good. The portions are huge, so next time I’d probably split an entrée. It’s definitely a hole in the wall kind of place. And on some nights they have live/local bands perform.

Utah ended up winning 27 to 8. Utah caught a bunch of interceptions, which is always exciting and their quarterback was super fast and always seemed to get past Oregon’s defense; just when I thought he was about to get tackled he’d slip through and gain more yards.

The cheerleaders have such a good stunt team, and I found myself watching them almost more than the game!

The only bad thing about the game was how far away we ended up parking because that place was PACKED! Seriously just over 45,000 people were in the stands. We ended up mapquesting directions to our car from the stadium just to see how far we walked. It ended up being one mile away, each way!

Random pictures from the game:

My "taking our own picture" skills need some work :)

It may only be 44 degrees but I have a large ice cold Diet Coke!

Mace and my dad

Mic & I. Kinda blurry.

Touchdown flags.