Full of Great, and Grateful

So, remember last year when everybody was making these adorable little buggers?

They were so cute, and I wanted one on our Thanksgiving table so bad.  But I ran out of time, and swore that in 2013, I would have one of those turkey veggie trays.

I didn't get one this year.

Instead I only got the BEST THANKSGIVING DAY OF MY LIFE. Ever.  And lost, probably forever, any tiny desire I  might have had to waste my time making a stupid turkey out of vegetables.  Or bake another pie. Or spend another Thanksgiving  cooking, cleaning and washing dishes while the men go off to watch some lame-o football game and fall asleep.

This Thanksgiving we left SLC at four in the morning in order to make it to southern California in time for an afternoon dinner and the beach. This is what four a.m looks like in our car.

And this is what Cedar City looks like at 7:30 in the morning.


We pulled into Alisa's around two, just about the time she was pulling out the turkey.  Her first Thanksgiving turkey.  I am so proud.

So we threw together an instant-everything Thanksgiving dinner, some of us gathered around her little table and some of us gathered on the living room floor around her coffee table in the living room.  We ate off paper plates and we forgot to pray.  It was awesome.

By three, we were fed, cleaned up, and headed out to this:

Really, how lucky are we, that in the year when our family has NO BUSINESS going on vacation, we have these two, living two miles from the beach, who shared their one bedroom, one bath apartment, and their Thanksgiving vacation with us?  For the price of gas and some road food, we had the best Thanksgiving of our lives.

And I have vowed to never again waste another Thanksgiving on the food.

I would much rather be digging my heels into this stuff:

with views like this:

Bird of Paradise. Right outside Alisa's apartment.

The only thing that would have made it better was if Mitch could have been there too.  Next year, we will plan ahead a little better.