Thanksgiving Weekend

I was actually on top of my Thanksgiving post but then Blogger freaked out on me and I had to pay for more storage. So, here I am with our (long) Thanksgiving recap!

We went to St. George where most of Casey's extended family lives and spent our time with hundreds of Willard relatives. The trees were this pretty (not my photo):
And Uncle Bob's house is this big and awesome, with a merry-go-round in back:
To avoid the Vegas Holiday traffic, we left Thursday morning at 4am and it was wonderful. The kids slept for 4 1/2 hours, all the way to Mesquite:
Of course they missed this beautiful full-arch rainbow:
and this beautiful morning sky:
But we were all happier for it.

We got there just in time for breakfast at the church (mmm. Cinnamon rolls). The kids were very excited to run around the cultural hall.
And then over to Bob's house for the rest of the day. There's always plenty of time to chat with family and catch up. Here we are doing just that with Michelle, Holly, Me, and Lauren:
The dinner is huge and held in Bob's special octagonal room with tons of tables and plenty of yummy food:This year there were festive Pilgrims and Indians:And tons of family. Casey's parents:
Casey's parents, his brother Brady, a family friend Kim, cousin Jeremy, Casey, and me:
While everyone ate dinner, I turned on Robin Hood in the other room to entertain Lucy. Little by little everyone congregated to the other room to watch. It was funny.
Chad was especially zoned in:
Grandma and Grandpa were a great help with the kids:
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On Friday we headed to the park for games and turkey sandwiches:
The kids built rockets:
launched them:And Brady watched:Lucy danced around in the grass and played with dirt:
We played Frisbee Golf:It was really fun and despite what you might think from my great wind-up below, I pretty much sucked:Casey, of course, was really good:We chatted with family. Here are Casey's Aunt Penny and her daughter Melissa:Tibby, Jeff, their daughters, and Uncle Paul:Aunt Donna, Gina, and Nancy:
Uncle Randy and Uncle Bob:
Chad and Otis:

Melissa and her little one:Me and Luce:Parry and Linda:And this is one of my favorite pictures of the weekend. Owen with Aunt Lauren, Uncle Chad, and Uncle Brady. I just love all their expressions:

Later that day, I snuck off on my own and went to this boutique:looking for these cute shoes:
She liked them!
And then I met up with the girls to see this for the (uh-hem), second time:
Yes, it's true. Twice in one week. But, I actually liked it better the second time around. I ignored the things that bugged me and just enjoyed the good stuff.

Back at Bob's house people were hanging out:
conked out on the couch:
And singing silly songs for uh, Silly Song Night:
Uncle Sherm is the oldest brother and perhaps the funniest?
Brady got a Charlie Brown Christmas tree:The kids found Aunt Karen's "treasure box" and jumped inside (till they got busted):
And all kids seem to gravitate toward Casey. He's so good with them, playing games or reading books:
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Saturday morning was mellow and relaxing. Lucy rode the merry-go-round for the first time:
And tried to corral the horse. He wanted nothing to do with them:
The men transported all the folding chairs back to the barn, we cleaned up the house, and hit the road....stopping here first, of course:
The line was crazy long. But hey, we got to see cool sights like this:
Despite our plan to beat the Vegas traffic (by leaving on Saturday) we still ran into plenty of cars. It was a rather long drive home. But I savored a few beautiful moments...like when the kids were sleeping and I gazed out at this pretty skyline:
We were happy to be back home. But we had so much fun with all the Willards. We are so blessed to have wonderful, interesting, crazy, nice, and funny relatives on both sides. They are great fun to be around.