It was cold, but she assured me that she was just fine in her flip flops. I noticed that she eventually did slip on the sweatshirt I carried over for her.
While everyone was waiting for the last shift of latecomers to arrive, some of them (Nicole, Creig and Meg) headed over to the swings and playground, never to make their way back to the football playing field;
some of them played catch;
and Leah kept herself busy doing cartwheels.
It always takes a little standing around and discussion
before the teams finally get figured out.
Sarah, Chandler, Adam, Isabel and Brita against me, Jared, Doug, Anna and Leah.
Even though Chandler and Sarah are both really fast, somehow my team pulled out the win. Still not sure how that happened but we had a ton of fun chasing each other and trying to get open so we could catch that football (that never got thrown to a couple of us).
When it was dark we went home to find granny in the middle of the family room lying on Hannah's massage table. Hannah put her skills to use and spoiled granny with a massage.
Carrie and I were both feeling very relaxed and we both almost fell asleep just watching Hannah give mom a massage. When mom could finally sit up and start moving again, we piled in the cars and headed to Spanish Fork for our annual drive through the Festival of Lights. Ever since Jared got his Honda Ridgeline truck, we've piled the kids in the back with lots of blankets and driven them around that way. They are smashed in there, but they love it and I love watching them.
It was freezing, but they seemed cozy enough so we went around the loop twice. Jared even stopped the truck long enough to kiss me under the tunnels and the kids in the back didn't even notice. We love this light display and Doug loves tradition. We've been going there ever since Creig was two years old and each year they add new things that make it fun and we never miss going when Doug is in town.
When we were finished there, Carrie wasn't feeling well so she and her family went home and we promised to save them some pie that they could eat the next day.
The rest of us went to my house and pulled out a few of the 12 pies Doug ordered. Doug takes Thanksgiving pies super seriously. This year he ordered 12 pies for the 17 of us. We started eating some of them on Wednesday night because he wanted to get an idea of which pies we like the best so he knows which ones to order next time. He even went so far as to order from both Kneader's and Shirley's Bakery so we could have an excellent sampling. I also thought it was very smart of him to get a pecan pie & a banana cream pie from both places so we could compare them and determine which ones we liked better.
So while everyone else was digging into the pies, I was setting up a blind taste test (Jared insists that it's a "blinded" taste test, but I disagree) with the pecan and banana cream pies. Shirley's won the pecan pie test (only Leah liked Kneader's better) and Kneader's won the banana cream pie test (only Jared and Meg liked Shirley's better).
Overall, our favorite pies from Kneader's were the banana cream and the chocolate cream. Our favorite pies from Shirley's were very berry, coconut cream, sour cream lemon and pecan.
Just like her dinner plate, mom always loads up a nice plate with a sampling of many pies:
With our bellies full and our hearts happy, Jared, Doug, Isabel and the kids settled in for a pretty intense game of Pit that could be heard throughout the house.
I have to include this picture of the scoring sheet. Looks like Leah's writing to me. I love it.
I'm so grateful for holidays that bring us together. I love my family and I drink up the moments when we are all smashed together in one space. There is something special about family - I don't know if I'm close to my family because we've had to work hard over the years to work out differences and accept things that we can't change about each other, or if it's just because they are all amazing people who make me feel good. But whatever the reason, I'm so grateful to claim them as mine. I'm sad that the close of the holiday will take some of them away, but our time together this holiday season has etched these people even deeper in my heart. Time might erase some of the memories, but that love stuff runs deep and strong.
but I'm deeply grateful for the things this holiday etched into my heart and my memory.
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