Sleep in Heavenly Peace

During dinner one night we decided to turn on some Christmas music. As the melody Silent Night came on, I noticed that Bryce was really having a hard time eating because he was drifting off to sleep. It was a perfect setting so I had to get the camera!

Thanksgiving Vacation

This year we decided to do our main holiday vacation, during Thanksgiving time since Connor's school had a week off. This was our first time as a family to travel by car back west, so it was a little exciting but did not know how we all were going to handle the long, almost 20 hour ride.

As we were packing, Nala did not want to be left

so she snuck into one of the bags. To her

misfortune however, we found her, and we had to say goodbye.

(she had the best of care though by a very nice

couple in our ward who live just down the street)

Because of the distance we started off on Friday the 20th by picking Connor up from school a little early and then heading off on the road towards Lincoln, Nebraska where we spent the night. Saturday was our full day of driving, planning on getting into Salt Lake that night. We were having a lot of fun (as much fun as you can have in a car), but we wanted the kids to stretch and enjoy some history, so we stopped at a place called Fort Cody in North Platte, Nebraska, (the home of Buffalo Bill). Fort Cody houses a wild west show in miniature so we thought that it would be some fun.

Hey Folks I'm Buffalo Bill. Glad you stopped

on by!

The miniatures, there was a lot to see

All and all it was fun to see, but we

found out it was a Huge . . .

It's gonna blow!!

Taking the Bull or ox by the horns

Thinking about our ancestors, and wondering

how they walked out west when driving in a car

seems long to us. Thank you for leading the way!

We got back on the road again, but soon after

we got a very big surprise, which caused us

to stop yet again and ponder about the situation.

The situation of the one blown tire plus our

flat spare had us thinking for 5 hours, because that is all you can

do on the side of the road waiting for help.

At least the kids were kept entertained by our

portable DVDs.

By the time we got back on the road we decided that we needed to spend the night in Cheyenne, WY rather than traveling the rest of the way to Salt Lake. Needless to say we were sooo glad to get into the Salt Lake valley Sunday late afternoon.

During the rest of our week there we had a lot of fun visiting with siblings, cousins, aunts, uncles, and grandparents. We love our families and are so thankful for them.

We also took time to getting our hair cut

This was Bryce's first time getting one

He did Awesome!

Going swimming

Singing with Grandpa and friends

And sharing moments with Grandma

Our Thanksgiving was split between two families this year. We first went to Dean's brothers house to be with his side of the family, and then the latter part of the day was spent with Edie's side at her parents friends house in Sandy. The day was a lot of fun and we all enjoyed spending it with the ones we love.

Our trip was a lot of fun! And we are glad we came.

We have so many things to be thankful for. Our Father in Heaven has blessed us greatly! Some of the things that we are thankful for is our home, our families, the knowledge of the restored gospel of Jesus Christ that we are apart of, Dean's job and that he really does enjoy it, our friends, our neighbors, the temple and that we can be an eternal family, and the memories we have made during this trip.