Thanksgivings

We had a little Charlie Brown Thanksgiving this year to celebrate Charles Schulz' Birthday on November 26 like we did a couple years ago. Besides toast, popcorn, pretzel sticks, and jelly beans, we had peppermint patties and lemonade.

The day after, November 27, was Thanksgiving. Wednesday and Thursday we had several helpers helping Jeremy and me make food for our big Thanksgiving dinner. A while before, Jeremy and I had a discussion about how you can buy butter shaped like turkeys for your Thanksgiving table. We talked about how you could do it cheaper with your own mold. We don't have a turkey mold but you know what kind of molds we do have? Frogs. That's right. We have frog molds to make chocolate frogs. Man, now I want to make chocolate frogs. We decided because we're awesome that we would make butter frogs to go on our Thanksgiving table. We did. Jet and Nichole helped fill the molds and I was happy with how they turned out.

Kids also helped with rolls and deviled eggs and setting the table and it was just a nice dinner.

Jeremy and I did the turkey. Jet decided to name it "Gobbler." I love this family.

We had pumpkin pie and apple pie. 

We have so much to be thankful for and I'm glad I've tried to focus on that this month.

More Fall Colors

Jet and I went for a drive up South Fork Road one day to look at the Fall colors up there. Gorgeous.

Happily, we were able to see turkeys on the road and to the side of the road. Love it.

It's fun when you have an excuse to stop and look at the birds because they're crossing the road in front of you.

 

Hard to Celebrate When You're Sick

While sick, there's not a lot I want to do. Give me steam, herbal tea, and rest. 

Unfortunately, the rest is more restless than anything. I cannot get a good night's sleep when lying down makes me cough. Sigh. I'm gradually getting better now (knock on wood). But for a while, I wasn't up to blogging, baking, or shopping. And not so much celebrating.

I did save some rolls after Thanksgiving (they don't usually last long) for Turkey Leftover Day on November 28. Turkey sandwiches. Go, me.

December 1 was Eat a Red Apple Day but we only had one red apple left to split between the seven of us so we had tiny slices for everyone.

 

Of course while I was the worst sick was while Jeremy was out of town for another conference.

For Walt Disney's Birthday on December 5, we ate peaches with a spoonful of sugar on them.

Wolfenoot!

Wolfenoot was November 23.

I wore my wolf sweatshirt to go out and do a little birding with Jeremy. He only needed a few more species in a certain county for this year's UCB challenge. 

The challenges are done every other year and there is usually a different challenge each time. This year it's getting at least 22 species (since it's 2022) in as many different counties as you can. A little added challenge was going out on 2-22-22 and seeing 22 species. You may remember the kids and I did that in February.

As Jeremy and I were driving, we stopped on the road at one point for wild turkeys to cross. We got to count them for the challenge (I already got my 22 species in that county. I was there supporting Jeremy).

Later that night as Jeremy was trying to thaw our Thanksgiving turkey enough to get the neck and giblets out, Jet saw it in the sink full of water and kept telling us how the turkey was swimming in the water.

How cute is that?

I slept through dinner but the family saved me some bacon and full moon pancakes because you have to eat meat on Wolfenoot.

 

The next day I made a lot of food and we ate it for Thanksgiving.

Exploring Somewhere New

One day, the kids and I made the trip to Wasatch Mountain State Park over by Midway. We may have driven through it once when coming back from Cascade Springs, but we've never been there.

I read some blog posts about it from Utah's Adventure Family, and wanted to take the kids to explore, so we did. We stopped by the duck pond at the visitor's center to see some birds. We saw a great blue heron flying in and landing by the reeds. After watching some barn swallows flying around, we saw a bald eagle flying close to the water then off into the distance. That was great. Those things are big. And they're not as common in Utah in the Summer. We expect to see them more in the Winter. So that was exciting.

We drove up to Huber Grove next to look around. There are pioneer buildings and informational signs about pioneers who lived in the area. They also have some nature trails so we all went walking through the woods then through the grasses where we got attacked by burrs, but mostly Jr. His pants collected the most so we all helped to get them off of him.

While we were in the grove of apple trees, a group of turkeys came for a walk near us. Two adults and several youngsters. They weren't bothered by us and we didn't do anything to bother them, just watched and took pictures.

Before we left that area, we had a snack in the van while listening to birds and watching squirrels run around. Then we drove to another place in the park where we thought about going hiking but it was too hot and we didn't get too far before we headed back to eat lunch in the van before driving home. The kids were done.

I enjoyed the trip with the kids and definitely want to go back. It's a lot closer than Antelope Island State Park (which we love) and I could definitely do more exploring.

That evening I went to a Relief Society activity. There was a chocolate fountain with things to cover with the chocolate and plenty of pleasant conversation. It was appropriate for National Junk Food Day on July 21.

Thanksgiving 2021

Thanksgiving was on November 25. Because Jeremy had to work part of the day, I did more with the turkey than I'd done before.

I did more with the vegetable platter than I'd done before, too. I got the idea from a friend who put on a little Thanksgiving dinner for the younger boys earlier in November.

Jet slept while the rest of us ate so when he woke, he was ready to eat. 

We, as usual, had great conversation over the dinner table. Unfortunately we have colds again so besides the good conversation, there was also a lot of coughing at the dinner table. 

And Jeremy brought home a huge pumpkin pie from work.

So that was Thanksgiving 2021.

National Leftovers Day was on November 26.

Then Jeremy went on a trip to another fair convention and listened to The Grateful Dead on National Electric Guitar Day, November 27. I had to put this in here since it didn't fit with future posts. 

Turkeys and Veterans and Pizza, Oh My

Jeremy was out of town at a fair convention so the kids and I celebrated a few things without him.

 

Jr. Jr. and Lucky went to a little Thanksgiving Dinner where they got to do crafts and eat food.

The next day, November 11, was Veterans Day.

It was also National Sundae Day so we had Chinese Sundaes, also known as Hawaiian Haystacks.

The next day, November 12 was Pizza with the Works Except Anchovies Day. Sadly there have been a few years when we've missed this holiday. Can you believe it? I made sure to celebrate it this year. Individual pizzas with lots of choices for sauces and toppings including dessert pizzas.

That day, Jr. also entered a Fablehaven trivia contest at school because the newest Dragonwatch book came out in October and they had a couple copies to check out. The two people with the most points would get to check out the book first and the top 10 scorers would get a metal bookmark. 

When Nichole and Jet and I picked him up from school, I asked how it went because he'd been studying/reading books to prepare. He let me know he got 11th place. Oh, no. That's too bad. Barely missed it. We gave him sympathy.

Mom: Oh, man. Seriously, you got 11th place?

Jr.: Just kidding. I got 10th.

Mom: Really? So you did get a bookmark. Ha Ha Ha Ha.

Jr.: Yeah. 1+0=10, right?

Mom: No. It equals 1.

Jr.: Oh, so I guess I got 1st place.

That made me laugh because he totally had us going. Thinking how sad that he didn't even get a bookmark, to happy to find out he did, to ecstatic to find out he got to check out the new book first. Yay! Nice one, Jr. He also got to check out another book and besides the bookmark, he also got some stickers.

Way to go, Jr.

I keep telling you we're Brandon Mull fans.

Big Springs Hiking

National Sleepyhead Day in Finland is on July 27. I got the kids up early this year (early for Summer anyway) to go hiking up Big Springs since that is one of the items on our Summer Wishlist and we kept putting it off for various reasons. Jr. Jr. really wanted to go so we made it happen. Morning worked better than evening. Anyway, Lucky was the last one still asleep but we didn't get him wet.

We did however have fun hiking. There was so much to see- plants, animals. We saw wild turkeys on the drive up and a few times on the hike. 

 

There were butterflies everywhere. It was quite pleasant.

We didn't make it all the way to the springs which was Jr. Jr.'s goal but he had a good attitude about us needing to turn back. 

I was impressed with Jet and how far he hiked. He was just happy to go anywhere if he got to hold and look through binoculars. 

Jr. got the brother of the day award, though, when Jet didn't want to walk anymore and Jr. carried him all the way down the trail and got him to sleep holding those binoculars. While he was asleep, I took them away but he stirred and I had to give them back so he would go back to sleep. Finally I was able to put them away but that boy loves binoculars. 

It was a wonderful hike. We had Jet saying, "Hiking." We couldn't get him to say, "We are hiking." When we tried to get him to say that, he would say, "1, 2, 3, hiking." So cute.

Later in the day, we did have a water fight like we did last year for Sleepyhead Day.