A busy Thanksgiving week

Headed over to visit the kids before the big Thanksgiving holiday because they weren't coming for Thanksgiving this year, and because I really miss them --- I mean who wouldn't miss these darlings!

The weather was FaNtAsTiC - especially since Salt Lake was getting snow! We headed off for an outing at the ZOO The sun was bright and the animals were active The Denver Zoo has Komodo Dragons. I've never seen them before. These are the babies. They were cute and kept us entertained for a while as we watched them get their nails clipped and jump all over the groomers. It was funny. There were also adult Dragons, they were not cute. They were amazing, but kind of freaky! One of our favorite things at the Zoo
Happy Feet! We rode the cool train - and measured our growth - We also made a trip to visit Dr. Bohn (our favorite dentist) and get our teeth checked and cleaned We made crafts
Cheesecake bitesWatched this little guy dismantle the dishwasher (sorry guys, but he was so determined)!
And decorated a gingerbread house
Are they not the cutest kids? See why we miss them SO much? Thanks B&J, LOVED the visit, and love you!
Thanksgiving morning, Curt and I started off by running a Thanksgiving 5K with Amy Oh yeah, our snazzy metals. I was very proud of Curt, this was his first 5k and he did great! Can you tell he has lost over 30 pounds? He's doing really good and I'm proud of him.
Then, on to the Thanksgiving feast. Oh yes, it was great ---
Peter is showing us his favorite dish --- a tofu turkey. It was actually pretty good!
So, how many of you had a balloon lady at your Thanksgiving dinner? If you would of had Thanksgiving dinner with us, you would have met Sharon, the balloon lady. She kept us, and the kids, occupied for quite some time - Then Gardner Village with the Elves and the Olson girlsWhere we found Santa's list -
and I did NOT like what I saw ---- My name (and Annie's) made "the LIST", ya know -- Santa's "Naughty List!" Can you find it? It's even spelled correctly!
Ok, I admit "I" may deserve to be on the list, but Annie was NOT happy about this one little bit. Marisa and her girls -
The elves were having a great time
So were we
It was a beautiful day but still a little chilly and we managed to find our first bit of real ice
Unlike the ice these elves were skating on We enjoyed our visit to Gardner Village - and the elves
Later on, the girls helped me decorate our snow village with "fake" snow

And we even had an "indoor" snowball fight (again --- fake snowballs).
But my fun was "real" and so is my gratefulness to be a part of such a wonderful family!

Thanksgiving - a little early

So this is our "off" year for Thanksgiving....meaning our children are "off" with their other families celebrating the Holiday so I made our Thanksgiving feast a little early. It was delish!! We broke totally from tradition though and tried something you might say, a little different --- anyone say sweet and sticky RIBS???

Oh yes - finger licking, lip smacking, bone clearing good! We also had a potato and an oriental spinach salad (with carrot curls and oranges). Yes, we totally broke from tradition, it felt good, it tasted even better! We did, however, stick with an all American Apple pie.
Now I love turkey - but I eat it almost every day, so I am thankful this Thanksgiving for all things, but particularly RIBS!

Weird Science

The girls came for a little visit and Annie brought along something to occupy her time -

Pappa was VERY excited as this kind of thing is right up his alley - or should we say he enjoys this a bit more than dressing up as the "Prince" and escorting his beautiful "Princesses" to the ball (over and over and over again)! He helped Annie get things all prepared, and anybody that knows Curt will recognize right off that he reinforced the importance of "safety" while preforming experiments by having Annie wear her "safety glasses" no matter how involved the experiments may be (she was very willing to comply, by the way) -

So, here we go.....experimenting -

All sorts of technical words were floating around - some I hadn't heard since my Jr. High school days. It was most facinating Even Cate was learningA picture is worth a thousand words, isn't it?After the science experiments were over with, we experimented with art, again - Thanks girls, can't wait to do some more experimenting -