Thanksgiving in Utah

Our Thanksgiving adventure was packed full of fun and family and food. *Thanksgiving at Aunt Jenny and Uncle Kelly's house. Dad smoked a turkey, we got full on all the other parts of the feast and that night almost every kid got sick with the stomach flu and woke up throwing up. Nathan was one of the only ones who actually made it into a bowl. HA! *The kids played at a nearby park and played the Wii and watched movies and played Legos. *We went ice skating with Aunt Lani and Michael. This was the first time ice skating for all of the kids. Nathan got right up and started moving around the rink with very little hesitation. He skated for almost the entire time - finally got tired at the end and took a seat. He spent much of the time skating without even wearing a coat - and it was cold (definitely our warm blooded kid). *Ben and Dad went to a BYU-Utah football game and froze their buns off (it was literally 10 degrees outside). The rest of us hung out at Kyra's apartment and kept up with the game on our iphones. *We got in free at the Dinosaur museum (courtesy of Kelly's mom). The kids loved walking around and seeing all the fossils and models and dressing up in different dinosaur (and other prehistoric animal) suits. There was a cool bird exhibit that we checked out as well. We stopped at Burger King and Cafe Rio for lunch. YUM! *Sean and Caelan and I (and baby Kam) went to see the Transiberian Orchestra in Salt Lake which was amazing. *We went to see the lights at Temple Square with Dad's old college roommate, Johnny B and his family. We also met up with Uncle Dan and Aunt Natalie and their fam for a few minutes. When we got back to our car our little dog (well, not really ours, but we've been watching over him) left a smelly surprise in the car. GROSS. *We headed up to a little town outside of Odgen and met up with the Sorensen clan: Garrett and Melanie and their kids, Charity and Chad and their kids, Brittney and Porter and their kids, Kyra, Corbin, Caleb. It was excellent - I think maybe the first time all of the current Sorensen cousins were together at one place. We ate lots of leftover Thanksgiving food and played games. The kids had a turn in the hot tub. Very fun being all together.

Floating Lights

We took the family to a lantern Fest in ABQ. We went before sun down and found a good spot to hang out. There were fire pits all over the field and with each ticket you got a smores kit, so we roasted marshmallows and hung out by the fire. There was live music going and the kids ran around on the track. Once it was totally dark they gave the signal and all of us lit our paper lanterns and they floated up into the sky - hundreds, maybe a thousand, flying lanterns floating into the sky! It was awesome. It was just like the movie, Tangled, with the "floating lights." This might have to become a new tradition for us.

Reading in Bed

Nathan is becoming quite the reader. He likes to read when he goes to bed - I'll often find a stack of books in his bed. I told him to try an easy chapter book. Sometimes he tells us that he's read 25 pages over the course of say, our drive home from school. I think there is a lot of skimming going on, but it is nice to see him excited about books!

Halloween

Nathan found an old army hat that belongs to Dad and from then on was insistent that he be an army guy for Halloween. Luckily we had some camoflauge pants and shirt that worked well, and then he let me paint his face green and brown. They did some trick or treating at the trailer park and then at the church (trunk or treating). We finished the night stopping at a few houses on our street. The kids love going to our street because since we are the only trick or treaters that come they really give great treats (full size candy bars or full handfuls of treats).