A Turkey Trot and a Turkey Dinner

I love Thanksgiving. It is so wonderful to take a minute and reflect on all of the things that I have to be grateful for. My list goes on and on. I have so much and I am so blessed. I only hope I can do good with all that I have been given.

I also love Thanksgiving because I feel like it is the beginning of the "Holiday Season." From Thanksgiving through New Year's is such a special time. No other time of the year is filled with such service and love. Spending time with family and friends in a way that is different from the rest of the year. It just has a special feeling to it. I am really looking forward to every moment and experience!

And that first experience was a 5K. What a way to spend Thanksgiving morning. It was rainy but not too cold. Jon and I have been running more and more so we were excited for this little home town event. Jami came to run with us. Wendy, Darin, Dylan, Brooklyn and Parker all joined in the fun. They are so awesome!

My goal was to run the entire race and finish under 30 min. Yeah! I did it! 28:50(ish) was my time. I ran half of the race with Brooklyn at my side. I think she is going to have to be my new running partner. She was incredible!!

Jon and Dylan finished together in about 24 min. Jami came in right behind me. Parker is only 8 and he ran the whole thing. I hope my kids will be that tough when they get a little older. I really hope my wussy jeans skipped over them! Darin and
Wendy ran the whole thing too! I seriously have the coolest family!

I have to say that running a race on Thanksgiving really was a good idea. It really did make me appreciate my body. Every ache and pain reminded me how I am so blessed to have a healthy body.It definitely put a new spin to Thanksgiving.

We had a wonderful dinner with my family. Scott and Jen came which made this Thanksgiving more memorable. Of course we missed my sister Jeri and her family. It was just a really relaxing day.

That evening we had pie with Jon's family. The kids were excited to play with their cousins so they had fun with that. Although much of the visit was spent Twilight bashing, I was still a good time.

Before the race...

Still smiling after the race. :)

Our running buddies.

Dinner with the fam.

I hope this movie "sucks" in all the right ways!

I hoped this movie would "suck in all the right ways" and for me it did! I loved the movie! Of course it could never live up to the book, and there were changes, some for the good and some I didn't love, but overall I thought it was great! Edward totally grew on me (although he definitely got on my good side by posing with me in a picture before the movie), and I loved Bella. Jasper was a little weird, but the line in the movie describing him as if he were in pain made his facial expressions so funny that even he grew on me a little by the end. I loved how the high school scenes became more of a reality too, just the goofiness of that age. I guess I'm getting old and forgot a little how it is. I absolutely loved the baseball scene and I thought that the ballet studio scene was incredible! My least favorite part was Edward's diamond skin. That's just not how I pictured it! Oh well, I'll take the good with the bad.

My favorite part was going to this movie with my sister, sister-in-law, niece, best friend, and cool neighbors. What more could a girl ask for? Twilight lovers unite!

We all met for dinner before the movie! Twenty of us in all. I know the coolest people!

Edward totally has his arm around me in this picture. Jon was so jealous!:)
Yes we are nerdy enough to pose with people dressed up as characters from the movie.
I'm not even sure who these people are suppose to be.

This is us in great anticipation for the movie.
We had a blast and although maybe everyone didn't LOVE it, no one was sorry they came!

Tyli Shakin' her Boodie

Tyli LOVES to dance. She starts to boogie anytime, anyplace. We've started saying, "Ty is shakin her boodie!" because she wiggles her bum to the beat. The only problem is Madi gets confused and she'll come and tell me, "Mommy, Ty is shakin her boobies". Boodie, boobies....I guess she's shakin it all so it doesn't matter. ;)

Shopping With the Girls

My friends and I decided that we needed to have a girls day out. There is no better way to spend a girls day than shopping, shopping, eating and shopping some more. We had so much fun visiting all the great decorating stores and getting the good "after Halloween" deals. Then we got to have lunch at my favorite place, The Olive Garden. Yummmm! We had a great time!

These are the funnest girls to hang out with. Lucky me!

One of my favorite stores, which is funny, because I'm not even into decorating that much. But even I can appreciate cool stuff at reasonable prices.

Brent says that anyone who thinks there is a recession can come and visit us.
I love his face in this picture.

When talking about trouble, these two are it. But I love them!

Halloween Night

This year was especially enjoyable because we got to visit so many fun cousins before we went trick-or-treating. Then Casey and Elise joined us to travel around from house to house. We had a blast in our new neighborhood!! It was so warm. It seemed as though the entire neighborhood was out. It really felt like one giant party.
Madi is definitely a hard core trick-or-treater!! She traveled the entire ward without a complaint. Impressive!! The funniest part of the night was having this little car of teenagers slowly driving around blasting mariachi music. Everyone in the car was wearing sombreros and bopping back and forth to the beat of the music. It is still so funny to me that I can laugh just thinking about it. I already loved my new neighborhood, but after such a fun night I don't know if I'll ever be able to move. Once we got home, we all pigged out on candy. What more can you ask for from Halloween?

We always start Halloween night off with a visit to Grandma and Grandpa Fulks. They always have yummy treats to share.

Visiting Chase, Bryson, and Brynlee

Visiting Brooklyn and Parker.

Madi has gone trick-or-treating every year of her life with Kambry and Bryce. It just isn't Halloween without the Pehrsons!

Even Casey, Elise, and Jon dressed up. Who wouldn't want to give this group extra treats?

Check out this hottie!!

A visit from Grandma Dorothy.

Reaping the Rewards!

Halloween Fun

We had a lot of fun this Halloween season. We had a blast at Halloween music makers, the neighborhood Halloween carnival, making ghost succers with the Hicks, making "mummy dogs" with some friends, as well as the many other things that I've already blogged about. We LOVE Halloween!!

Carving Pumkins

It really isn't Halloween without some pumpkin carving action. This year we had a fun night up at the Browns. Cindy thought we had the best carved pumpkins in Bountiful and I think she is right! After all of our grueling efforts our pumpkins turned out AWESOME!! OK, we might be a little biased, but we had tons of fun and thought all of our effort paid off. We always go a little picture crazy. Here is some of the fun we had...

Yummmmm!!

Madi loves Mike and thought it was so cool that he helped her carve her pumpkin.

Meg always bring out the goofy side in everyone. She is so much fun to be around!

Michael wasn't going to worry about anyone getting in his way. He was serious about getting this pumpkin cleaned out!

Lizzy came up with her own cleaning technique...scour the pumpkin with soap and scrubbing brush. Her pumpkin was literally glowing when she was done. When we lit up our pumpkins after carving them, hers was the brightest one. I think she has found a special carving secret.

Ty was a good little helper. I was surprised at her patience with helping out on the details.

I know this isn't the best picture of Ben. He was such a sport with the girls. They followed him everywhere. They especially loved his bunny. Tyli thinks his burping is hilarious!

Jon is the best dad! He has patience galore. He is definitely adored by his girls. They love doing anything with him. Here they are busy cutting out the fingers in their alien pumpkin. He says that if they can't have scary costumes at least they can have a scary pumpkin.

Pumpkin order...Lizzy, Meagan, Ben and Quinn, Jodi, Mike and Jon, Madison

Well this is our pumpkin carving group (minus a few.) We had a blast! And as Jon would say, only 364 more days until we get to do it again.

Pumpkin Walk

Each year we look forward to visiting the Syracuse pumpkin walk with the Gabberts. The amount of pumpkins is quite amazing. As we stroll past them all we watch for some of our favorites. Tyli loved any with birds or funny faces. Madi loved Dora and all of the princess pumpkins. Jon likes the ones that are carved with such incredible detail. (Also, he like some that were about some video game. Go figure.) I really liked the detailed carving of the pumpkins that said "Don't touch the pumpkins!" all along the walk.

We love this tradition with the Gabbert grandparents and the Oylers. Jami and Sam joined us this year. Unfortunately Sam got called away on a fire right before the walk. We missed him!! Somehow we were still able to enjoy ourselves even with his absence. :) (We love you Sam!) It is just a really cool event.

We always end the trip with hot chocolate and treat from the firefighters. What fun!!

We love to get a cute picture with Grandma and Grandpa by all the pumpkin decorations.