Wednesday, December 3, 2008

Thanksgiving


We spent Thanksgiving with my parents here in Utah County this year. One of the biggest things that I was grateful for was that every single one of my brothers, sisters-in-law, nieces and nephews were there! That doesn't happen much anymore and it was great to have all of us together (even if my Mom & Dad's house was a bit crazy and noisy!).

My brother Travis got home from his 4-month trip to Brazil the Friday before Thanksgiving, which was especially nice because he had originally planned to stay until right before Christmas. He served as a missionary in Brazil and returned home in March 2007, so it was interesting to welcome him back a second time! He came home with some crazy long, curly hair that I thought was pretty cool, but he's chopped it all off already.

Ryan, Thomas and I mostly spent the whole week at my parents house in Spanish Fork since everyone else was staying there, but a couple days before Thanksgiving we had everyone over for a barbecue at our house, since some of my siblings hadn't seen our new home yet. The boys got all geared up and went four-wheeling in the hills across the street from our house, and Thomas had a great time playing with his cousins.

Its always so fun watching Thomas buddy around with all his cousins (Anika-7, Aiden-4, Ciara-4, Zander-2, Dalin-1). He was in heaven with so many kids to play with every day, and even though there was a bit of bickering that went on at times, the kids were all so cute together. Ryan is so cute with his nieces and nephews too! For some reason, he's the uncle the kids like to climb all over. I love the photo of him holding four of them all at once!

On Thanksgiving Day we had a fabulous feast of turkey, ham, stuffing, mashed potatoes & gravy, green bean casserole, sweet potatoes, rolls, frog eye salad and snickers salad, and then later we of course followed all that up with pumpkin, cherry and apple pie! We had a fabulous time stuffing ourselves and then sitting around talking, watching the kids play and just being with family. My Grandma & Grandpa Kotter were able to come down from Logan to join us on Thanksgiving Day and it was wonderful to see them...though they only live two hours from me, I don't see them nearly as often as I should! They are sweet, wonderful people and I love spending time with them. I kept trying to teach Thomas to say "Great-Grandpa" or "Great-Grandma" but he mostly just stuck with calling them "Grandpa" or "Grandma." It was still cute!

My Mom & Dad's 33rd wedding anniversary was several days before Thanksgiving, and for a gift all of us siblings and siblings-in-law wrote some memories and letters that we compiled into a book to give to my parents. We had fun reading out loud from the book after Thanksgiving dinner and remembering lots of funny and touching stories from the years of our childhood, and also from the years since our spouses have joined the Kotter family. It was a great way to celebrate Thanksgiving and I am so grateful for my parents and all my family!

It was also my brother Jared's 13th birthday on Thanksgiving Day this year. Its so crazy that he is a teenager now...I was 13 when he was born! We had a birthday cake for him on top of all the pie, and he got his first Ipod, which he was pretty stoked about.

It was a great week! The only sad thing was the way it ended...Thomas ended up getting a 24-hour stomach flu the last day everyone was here, which was eventually passed on to me, and has now been passed on to Ryan! So that hasn't been fun. But I'm just grateful the sickness missed us during Thanksgiving, and that we were able to have an enjoyable, memorable time together with all of our family!

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