Thanksgiving!

This year Thanksgiving was a new and great experience filled with a lot of firsts. Gavin had to work for most of the day thursday, luckily he works down the street (literally) from my sister's house, which was where my family was having dinner so he made it to dinner with plenty of time to spare. Or rather, with plenty of time to finish his homework and get it submitted before dinner started.

Actually getting dinner ready Thanksgiving day was odd, and I couldn't put my finger on why that was. It took about twenty minutes for me to realize why it felt so different, then I finally figured it out. The crazy frantic stress at trying to get everything finished wasn't there! With me married now and brother and sister in law's kids old enough now to not require every shred of their attention, dinner responsibilities were able to be divided out more evenly so all the pressure that usually falls on my mom and sisters wasn't there. It was nice. I was responsible for the pretzel salad this year, which I have greatly enjoyed eating many times but never actually made before. The first attempt went alright, my oven freaked out and didn't heat to the right temp. so the crust was a bit under cooked but pan number two turned out fabulously.

I love Thanksgiving with my family, its a day that no matter how frantic (not so much this year) and frazzled we get with each other (there's 19 of us, it happens) the day always ends with laughter and good feelings. This year the main after dinner entertainment was my dad doing card tricks for Adam, my aunts boyfriend, and attempting valiantly to stump my brilliant 11 year old niece (he succeeded only once. My dad is forever the showman and we all were laughing at Adam's reactions. I got to assist in the game of Black Magic. Its simple magic trick which left everyone a little stumped and us feeling a little smug about it.

After dinner and clean up Gav and I ran home quickly to pack a bag and head up to Bear Lake where his family was spending the holiday. We got there about 1 in the morning, but felt ok about it when his sister Maddie got back from visiting friends shortly after us, so we weren't the last ones in. We could only stay one day because I unfortunately needed to be to work saturday morning. But the day we spent was nice. It was a little bit of culture shock for me to be completely honest. I have never really been in an enviroment where everything revolved around either the kids or a football game. My family isn't really interested in sports so we rarely even turn the TV on when we're all together and all the kids entertain themselves elsewhere leaving the adults to do the same. So it was a little bit of a brain adjustment. Gavin was lucky I joined them in the hot tube because it was FREEZING outside and I wasn't sure the walk to the pool house was worth it. I went eventually but did something kind of stupid, I let myself get dehydrated (which for me happens very quickly in water) and didn't drink anything but soda the rest of the day. Combine that with little sleep, eating more than I am used to and a two hour drive, I was feeling mildly ill by the time we got home that night and couldn't bring myself to do much besides lay on the couch and pound out a water bottle. After I polished off the water I was feeling better though.

Things I'm grateful for this year:
*Being married to a wonder man whom I love profusely
*Literally doubling the size of my family and all the new experiences that brings
*Illness that can be cured with a full bottle of water
*Being employed and able to pay the bills
*The generosity of family and friends

Firsts:
*First time ever going to Bear Lake
*First time making Pretzel Salad (or any part of Thanksgiving dinner)