The One with the Thanksgiving in Arizona

As much as I love seeing my family I will admit that I am glad (or should I say, thankful :) this was our last double digit hour drive home this year.  I am also really glad that Justin and I broke the drive up into multiple sections.  We usually stay up pretty late and figured as long as we were awake we should hit the road early so we drove down to Lake Powell Tuesday night.  Justin also didn't mind leaving that early because it meant we got to eat dinner at El Pollo Loco on the way and camp one more time this year.

Lake Powell is Gorgeous with a capital G!!

We woke up to a beautiful view and then headed to Tucson.  I really wanted to hit up the "A" store in the Tucson mall.  My current collection of UofA gear is starting to look a little too "holy" and I had a Christmas present in mind for Justin :)  After this little detour we had a few hours to kill so we drove over to Wendy's house and I had fun pushing the kiddos on the swings while Justin fell asleep on the couch.   Landon thought it was hilarious when I ran behind his swing as it swung forward and suddenly reappeared in front of him, like magic!  Wendy made some de-lic-ious chiminichangas for dinner which I will be attempting on my own soon (wish me luck, I'm soooo not a chef) and then Justin and I drove over to McKale Center for... the UofA men's basketball game!  I was so excited!  Justin had mentioned at the beginning of November that my Cats would be playing at home over Thanksgiving but I didn't think we'd be able to make it.  Well, we certainly did.  I have to admit I was a little disappointed, because we lost :(  But it was still super fun to be back on campus and we got to see the HUGE new screen at the football stadium.

This was awesome!  We got to see the presentation of the Territorial Cup during halftime because the Arizona football team beat ASWho in the annual Duel in the Desert!!

This HUGE lit letter A is on the backside of the new screen at the football stadium.  Brings a tear to my eye every time.

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Thanksgiving day itself was fun, happy, crazy, crowded and tasty.  Maybe it's a good thing Amy decided to start her own family tradition and had Thanksgiving at home.  No, I take that back, we missed you guys :(  I guess we'll have to start getting used to not spending every holiday with the entire family anymore- there are just too many of us!!  I think it's funny that we try to plan activities when we get together and then all we end up doing is just hanging out with each other.  That's my favorite part anyway.  Especially since I've moved farther away than I've ever been from my family and don't see them near as often as I'd like.  Here are a few pictures/videos of the fun had with family:

James was playing hide and seek in the backyard with these cute kids which quickly turned into just playing in the dirt.  Including a game you can probably only play in AZ- dirt angels :)

 

Bwahahahahaha!!  This cracked me up!

 When Justin had the chance he tried to rest like this-

because when the Brimhall children could find him this was what he actually spent most of the weekend doing:
falling out of chairs

 and trying to fit under small blankets.

 

For some reason they thought it would also be funny to "trap" his legs in pillows.  Or to let him trap their heads.  Either game seemed to make them laugh.

Another hit game for the weekend- Wii bowling.   Here's Justin showing his technique:

And Wendy impressing everyone with her moves (which somehow beat out Justin's more traditional approach):

And finally, the funniest moment from Thanksgiving.  For some reason I kept doing that dance from musical theater where you swing both arms directly in front of you while kicking both legs out behind you in the same plane.  I don't know how else to explain it and no, there is no video evidence of me even doing the dance so if you don't get it from this next clip, well, you're just out of luck.  Anyway, here is Trevy and Callie's attempt to do the dance.  Soooo funny!!  Quickly followed by a dance they do excel at, the Diaper Dance, with a guest appearance by Landon (aka Donald).

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Justin and I drove up to Phoenix on Saturday to visit the Fulps family and cut out a section of the final leg of our trip.  Kaden is getting so big!  He's definitely no longer a little boy.  Makayla and I played school for a little bit (meaning Makayla wrote a schedule on her white board while I tried to keep Seth from swallowing Barbie shoes) and then Justin helped out by teaching her Snell's Law of Refraction, complete with diagram. Umm, maybe a little too soon for that one honey.  Her expression was hilarious!  Wish we could have stayed longer but I did snag a few pictures of these little cuties:

 

 

Seth loves his Aunt Cindy!

Oh and what did the men do.  Take a wild guess.

"To ancient times and distant music!!"