A happy Thanksgiving

So far so good on the cougar front.  We did see enormous tracks in the mud when we took a Thanksgiving afternoon walk though.

It was a wonderful Thanksgiving.  Busy.  Exhausting.  Fun. I didn't take enough pictures. (It wasn't in the Thanksgiving Binder to take pictures apparently.)

I did take this shot of our table the night before:

The table is my favorite part of hosting a dinner.  Followed by dessert.

It was fun to have a house full of college kids.  Mark was the only one who has never gone to BYU.  The food all turned out pretty well.  Towards the end of the preparation, when it was all sort of coming together, I was a little surprised that it had actually worked.

There's magic in a binder with page protectors.  (I'm not saying it was the page protectors that made it happen, but I'm not saying I could have done it without them.)

We went to Coco last night.  Wow.  I cried.  And also I think there should be a link to Family Search at the end of that movie.

I love Thanksgiving.  There are many things to be grateful for in my life, but mostly I'm grateful for my people.  I'm grateful for my grandma, the grande dame of Thanksgiving.  She always created magic and on a scale that I can only aspire to.  I'm grateful for my mother and mother-in-law.  I thought about them yesterday and all the work they have done to create wonderful Thanksgiving meals I've been able to enjoy.

I'm grateful for Adam.  He not only washed a million dishes (ballpark figure) over the last few days, but he can make everything fit in the fridge.  He might be a wizard.  I'm grateful for Braeden.  He brings a party wherever he goes.  He's always up for anything and his sunny disposition and booming laugh make everything better.  I'm grateful for Emma.  It's so nice to have a girl.  When I mentioned nude nail polish the other day she was the only one who knew what I meant.  Everyone else sort of sputtered "what?!?" and Emma and I looked at each other with solidarity.  Also she is a great consultant on everything (table linens for example) and helpful in the kitchen.  I'm grateful for Mark.  He gamely goes along with whatever is happening.  When our guests arrived yesterday, in the first awkward minutes when you try to get a disparate group together, I told Mark to go find someone to talk to who was by themselves.  And that's exactly what he did.

And now for Black Friday!  (It should be called Red Friday around here because it's when we start opening up all the Christmas boxes.)