Thanksgiving Round 2!

So actually, this post will probably have a lot more stories & pictures from the week than actual thanksgiving day stuff, but that's because I'm super lame these days and didn't take any pictures of our thanksgiving evening. So... back to the beginning of this adventure:

Sunday night (after sitting in traffic on the way home from Grandpa Crowleys for 4 hours) I hurried to re-pack and get to the airport for our flight to Utah only to find out my flight was delayed an hour, which led to not even possibly making the connection so United was kind enough to bump me from my flight and give me the most inconvenient flight arrangement for Monday they could have come up with. These idiots expected me to fly (with an baby- which was noted on my ticket) leaving Bakersfield at 7:00am, have 2 lay overs, and not get into Salt Lake City until 6:00PM! ?? SERIOUSLY? I don't think so! After a few choice words and hanging up on the moronic customer "service" guy, I went into the airport to chat with the desk guy and he must have been able to smell the fury I was spewing as I stormed into the airport, and was wise enough to quickly find me a better, more convenient flight on a different airline. Perfect. So Monday morning Porter and I bored the plane only to have a crotchety old lady think she was going to yell at my child for kicking the back of her seat. I was quick to correct her train of thought, and all but chewed her up and spit fire down her throat.... but, in my defense, it was 6am, I didn't have leg room, and she was REALLY rude! 

After what seemed like the longest 2 hour lay over in the history of mankind, we boarded the second plane to a delightful group of people who played and entertained Porter the whole flight! So we made it to Utah, were picked up by Caleb & Trisha, and finally made it home! 

Porter was trying to be an escape artist... or a thug? He loves slouching in his chair. I'm not sure about this kid sometimes :) 

Porter & his Aunt Rach

 Here is Jenny & Andrew's youngest, Jackson! He has so much personality... :) haha <3

We have been so spoiled this week with having almost everyone here to play! Minus Cameron, and his brother Mike (who is in China) everyone has taken the week off of work/school/etc to play! Tuesday we started off early for Roberts craft store and well.... that was where all the happiness began. ;) we were there to just pick up a few things when we were looking at their black friday ads and saw an amazing deals on cartridges for the cricut. We (all the females of the clan, while the men entertained babies for an hour or so) decided to check out a few to see if it was worth coming back for on Friday when I noticed a lady loading up her basket with at least 30 of these things! I was nosy enough to ask her if she knew something we didn't know and... she did. Apparently if your a royal club card member (which Rach was) you could get black friday deals all of thanksgiving week, which translates into= A LOT of excited girls in our family loading up on all things crafty for a KILLER steal! We made it out of there feeling a little lightheaded and high from the amazing deals we got! Trisha and I are going to have to ship boxes home because there is not enough suit case space to take home the goods.

(Sunset)

 Porter (aka man cub) playing with his cousins!

Thanksgiving day was wonderful! We weren't planning on dinner until about 6 or so, so it gave us the day to lounge. We (Emily, Trisha & Jenny) took off early (9ish) to see Dan & Rach finish their Turky day 5k run! Then continued on our way to see Breaking Dawn. I am not going to lie, I enjoyed myself. Maybe it was the lack of child, the "tradition" of seeing a movie on thanksgiving day that I haven't done in years, or maybe just the fact that i loved the books so much, but I really liked it. Sure it was cheesy in parts, and sure they left plenty of ammo to mock it with, but all in all, it was a good morning activity.

We got home to the boys taking care of babies, prepping/cooking dinner, and dancing with turkeys. Nothing surprising in that last sentence. It's tradition. 

They had to paper/rock/scissors to see who had to change Porter's diaper, but everyone was alive and well. Cameron called and had a chance to talk to everyone in his fam before I took over the phone and chatted his ear off since I hadn't heard from him in DAYS! I really miss him. Being here with his family really makes that more apparent, and I always feel like someone is missing when we are sitting around at night. I'm sure it was really apparent to all the guys to since they didn't manage to blow anything up this week!

We really did have a mellow day, and I had a lot of time (during Porter's nap) to think about everything I am grateful for. I think the list would require an entire post of it's own, but there aren't any pictures to go with that, so we'll see :) Mostly, I am thankful for Family- for my family taking care of me and Porter this year, Cameron's family for being so amazing and fun to visit, and especially for my cute family of Cameron & Porter. I have been blessed with amazing people in my life and am so happy to be able to spend so much time with them!

It was really cold, but the boys all wanted to play outside. So Porter finally got to sport his Germany souvenir :) Cameron picked it out!

 Playing in the sandbox with Grandpa!

 Caleb & Andrew cooking the turkeys.

 Porter is not so cooperative yet.

 Playing pounce, or something that everyone really gets into!

 Porter & Grandpa!

I am convinced he will learn.... eventually :)
Attempt #1

 Attempt #2

 Attempt #3

All of my inlaws are a little on the insane side and started black friday about 10pm thursday night. They hit up Walmart, then came home until about 6 when they went EVERYWHERE else! I had a wonderful time sleeping in, going to breakfast with Kiley & Ryan, and then visiting with Bobby & Kelsie who happened to be in town at her brother's house for Thanksgiving! I loved it!!

 I spent the majority of our visit trying to convince Kelsie to start a blog. Her excuse was something about not having anything exciting to blog about. That held up for all of about 2 seconds until I was able to pull up our blog book from Minot. :) I made them read a few of the more hysterical entries, and I am hoping I convinced her to get started! I think, if nothing else, I was able to explain the transition of Cameron from "pre-married- yukon driving- motorcycle racing- leather jacket wearing-kid" to what we now know of Cameron's " very married- over protective dad- family truck driving- camo wearing- animal slaughtering- red neck of a man" :) And I mean that with all the love in my heart! :) It was a fun afternoon, for me anyway! I hope they had fun to, but I'm ridiculous and forgot pictures of that too :( But... lucky for me, they will be in Bakersfield for Christmas this year, so I'll see them in a few weeks!!

Porter, booking it for the street... he's one of the smart ones!

The only place I wanted to go today was Cabela's (yes.... that shows there has been plenty transition on my part as well) so we hit that up after Porter's nap. It was still crazy busy, but I found a super cute fleece that now make Trisha and I twinsies :) 

Me & Emily on our way to Cabela's. We made it alive!

 He wasn't even entertained by all the huge animals! What the heck?

We have wild plans for the rest of the week... so i'm sure I'll have more to post... :) But like always, it's easier to post in "smaller" doses. haha.

HAPPY THANKSGIVING!