First off, let me just say that is shocking how much weight you can gain over a 3 day period. Shocking. But it is OK, all of that weight just went into my belly and face--hardly noticeable.
Thanksgiving was fabulous as usual. We spend the evening before Thanksgiving as well as Thanksgiving at Brodi's parents house where we make our stuffing (bread, sage and about 14 cubes of butter) and then we spend the rest of the time eating and eating and eating. I want to feel the pain of being full and trust me, I felt it. I felt it real good. The kids love this because they get the full attention of their grandma and grandpa as well as hanging out with their Gubler cousins. The kids had a contest of spelling different words at the dinner table and laughing their heads off at some of the words they had to spell. Lets just say that the older cousins did a bit better at this game than the younger ones.
The next day we head down to our family ranch down in central Utah where we spend a couple of days eating and playing hard. The ranch is beautiful and lodging is awesome. There is a bedroom and a bathroom for every adult couple as well as another bedroom and a bathroom for ever family's kids (14 bedrooms, 12 bathrooms, yes, you read that correct).
Carter and Beckham could not get enough of it all. Carter calls it: Grandma Kate's Desert House. We then spent the next 2 days hiking to see Indian art, riding four wheelers over thousands of acres and riding horses. They especially liked the hike. What could be better than having hilly desert land in front of you, a nice trail, all of your cousins and few rules? Beckham did have one of his silent tantrums. This tantrum consists of him getting angy over something, laying face first on the ground (or dirt as it was, as we were on a hike) and not moving for a couple of minutes. When he decides that he has won the argument, he gets up and acts like nothing happened. Adorable, unless it was your kid. And Beckham is my kid.
Carter rode the horse all by himself. In fact, he asked that Brodi not steer the horse for him after a while as well. Beckham loved it as well, but he wanted Brodi to sit with him (though he has also ridden a horse all by himself).
The four-wheeling was fun as it was open roads every where you went. The kids just sat in the four-wheeler, clenched their teeth and hung on, laughing and talking the whole way.
Dinner was massive as every family made it their duty to bring lots of food. Plenty of food. And overall the trip was as fun as expected even though Beckham was a bit confused with me sleeping in his bed with him (he wouldn't sleep in the crib or on blankets on the floor, so he got to join me in the bed...Carter slept with Brodi) so we spent about 3-hours in the middle of the night hanging out with my trying to convince him it was time to go to sleep and him trying to convince me that I was wrong.
Overall, a very nice weekend and it is back to the grind of school, work, etc...
We spent Thanksgiving with Brodi's family and then that evening we drove to our family ranch down in Central Utah, Castle Valley Outdoors. This has been a family tradition to go down the ranch for Thanksgiving weekend for well over a decade now. It is located just outside of Emery (about 45 minutes from Price). It is a working ranch as well as an executive retreat ranch so the accomodations are fabulous. There is the lodge which has 9 bedrooms and 9 bathrooms...then there are 3 apartments in a house each with its own bathroom and then there is another house with 3 bedrooms and a couple of bathrooms. Plenty of room to handle all of us, which by the size of our family is pretty impressive. The pic on the left is during the summer...while the pic on the right is from late November.
The Thanksgiving dinner is crazy. Though my brother and his family couldn't come...my 3 sisters and their families as well as my other brother and his family - well, lets just say, that adds up to a whole lot of people.
We spent the days hiking, horseback riding, hiking some more, playing games (pool, cardgames, karaoke, campfire games and songs, etc.) and a lot of talking. I can safely say that Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday.
