Thanksgiving 2024

We did Thanksgiving dinner with friends this year.  I didn't host or have to make the turkey, so it was a pretty good deal.  Everyone helped make something as well.  Savannah did the rolls, Alex and Owen made pies, Weston did the green bean casserole, and Owen helped me with the fried chicken drumsticks.  I also did stuffing and pecan pie bars.  We had a fun time with friends.  We all wrote down things we were thankful for and shared them.  However, we decided it had to be more specific things, or if it was general things like family or friends, we had to share more about that.  So we got some very specific things like running shoes, popcorn, socks, chocolate, ballons, Lego Star Wars guys, or family movie nights.  We played games and some participated in a plank competition.  The college girl we invited to join us for dinner easily beat all of us, doing a plank for over 5 minutes (and she could have done longer)! 

Grace (Jared's good friend) had already been set apart as a missionary, so she was in the middle of her home MTC week.  We said farewell to her the next week as she went off for 18 months to her mission in Mongolia.

 

Here's a couple cute pictures she posted on Facebook:

November Misc

Most of the pictures I get from Nathan are game photos.  He went to his first BYU basketball game and all the students got a jersey for that game.  He went to some more cold football games as well.  

Some social happenings:  We said "good-bye" to friends who moved to Indiana (pic with Emilee and Alanna).  We had a lunch visit with friends who moved back from Washington (about an hour away now).  We welcomed Devan back from his mission.  Savannah had a couple of friend days.

Savannah participated in her last jog-a-thon.  She did great, running nearly the whole 30 minutes.  I jogged the last 10 minutes with her to give her the extra motivation to keep running. 

Savannah and I went out for lunch for one of the days that was early out for parent-teacher conferences.  

Pretty rainbow and sunset.

The youth did some fun activities - a fall bake off competition, which involved making cupcakes to be judged.  Savannah made the sign for the activity.  

Devan did a missionary night to report and share pictures from his mission.  Savannah got to hold a kitten that night since the host of the activity had a few kittens there.  

The youth went on an early morning temple trip.  

 

Swim Team

Savannah participated on the YMCA swim team this fall.  She did conditioning with the YMCA during the summer, but the season of competitive swimming started in September.  To get on the team, she had to swim 8 laps and then also swim 4 laps in under 2 minutes.  They do one meet per month, so she participated in the September and October meet.  She was all set to swim in the November meet and then I forgot to sign her up for the meet... I was supposed to register her by the Wednesday before the Saturday meet.  We had even talked about what events she wanted to do before the practice that day.  I still forgot.  I bolted awake Friday morning realizing I hadn't signed her up.  I tried to see if I could still register her but they wouldn't accept any late registrations.  I felt so bad about it (not winning any parenting awards for that mistake)...  

She swam the 50m backstroke, 50m breaststroke, and 50m freestyle in the 2 meets and improved her time in each of the events by the 2nd meet.  She even got 1st place in one of her races.  She has a couple of good friends on the swim team, so it's been fun for her.  She's a pretty good swimmer too.  

By December, we had to temporarily quit swimming since it directly conflicted with basketball.  She'll get back on the swim team in February or March.