Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving was our 9 year anniversary and Adrienne gave me an Olympus DSLR. While we had everyone in Adrienne's family together, we thought it might be a good idea to take a picture or two.

In the group photo we have all my in-laws including a boyfriend AND a fiance. Front row: Will, Me (Jason), Trevor (Heidi's fiance), Nick (Heather's boyfriend). On the couch: Liberty (my niece), Stephanie, Adrienne, Heidi, and Heather. In the back: Alex, Helen, and Dennis. It's the first time they've had a family photo since the kids were actually kids.

I thought a picture of the Turkey would be appropriate as well. It turned out really well. Since the bird was 24 lbs, it wasn't quite as juicy as last year. I do better with a 16-18 lb bird. It was still really good, but the legs were a little dry. The rest was great. The gravy was awesome, stuffing fantastic, cornbread pudding delicious, and so on. All in all it was a great day.

I also included a picture of Adrienne by herself. I don't seem to get many good pictures of her alone.
The last picture is my niece, Liberty. Will (my brother-in-law) is holding her for the photo. Isn't she cute!!!

Updates, Thanksgiving, and Fun

Adrienne and I spent another few hours working on our adoption profile this last week. There's still a ton to do. It's a just a matter of taking the time to fill it all out again. It's really a shame that the data was not exported very well from the old system. It's ok though, we'll get it done and it will be fine.

We had dinner with my sister and her boyfriend (Austin) last night at PF Chang's. The food was great and it was really fun. They are headed to Missouri so they can meet up with my parents for Thanksgiving. Sounds like a fun trip.

Ade's littlest sister (Heidi) is having her invitations printed today at my work. It's weird that the little girl I met over 9 years ago is engaged to be married on the 20th of December. What's even weirder is that a girl that I baptized in 1997 has just moved to Utah and will be married the 19th of December. What happened to all the little kids I used to know? How did they get so big? I'm starting to feel old.

Speaking of 9 years, Thanksgiving Day marks our 9 year anniversary (and my parents 38th anniversary if I remember correctly). Ade's family is driving up from Arizona to stay with us for the Holiday and help out Heidi get ready for the wedding. We bought a 24 pound turkey to cook up for everyone. I'll be cooking that with 2 kinds of stuffing and a Pumpkin Pie Cake...but that's about all I can handle cooking. I've delegated the rest of the "fixings" to everyone else.

I guess I should mention that BYU Football lost on Saturday to our biggest rival, Utah. It was 24-27 in the third quarter before Utah's defense stepped up and BYU fell apart. Congratulations to the Utes and bring on the bowl game so that we can end the season on a high note. If we win the bowl game, that will make 3 seasons in a row with 11-2 records. Not bad!

While I'm making a post, I just want to wish all our friends and family a very Happy Thanksgiving. This is my favorite holiday. It seems to me to be the least commercialized, and is one that helps us focus on gratitude. I am very grateful for all of you. I am grateful for your love and your prayers. May God bless each of you in your lives.

LDS Adoption Profile Going Digital

So last week we started the "new" online adoption profile. It was supposed to have a lot of our old information scanned or transferred over to it. What we found was that very little of our information made it in the system and even the parts that did make it were out of place much of the time. We spent an hour or two cleaning it up last week and we'll continue the process this week.

Chris and Karissa came down Friday with their son Landon. They just needed to get away from the parents house for a night (their staying at Karissa's parents' house while their new home is finished). It was tons of fun having them over. Landon is growing up so fast (just turned 2). We had a great dinner and watched a movie on Friday. Saturday, we had French Toast for breakfast and took Landon to the park for a bit.

We met the Clydes at the temple Saturday afternoon. Then Adrienne ran a few errands in Orem while I sat in the car listening to the BYU game. We beat Air Force by 14 which sets up a very interesting rivalry game this week against Utah (we have just one loss and Utah is undefeated). I hope we can pull it off this year. Our defense has been ravaged by injury all season long and now our big tight end Dennis Pitta (one of the top 2 or 3 tight ends in the country maybe even the best) sprained his MCL at the end of the Air Force game. I hope it's not too bad and that he can play this weekend, but I don't know.

It's late

I came home from basketball tonight and realized that I hadn't posted this week as yet...so I thought I'd put down a few thoughts for everyone.

Last weekend was the last home game of the year for BYU. It was fun, but not much of a game. It was as close to bored that I've ever been at a football game. The outcome was never in doubt, but our offense is always fun to watch.

We were going to head down to our friends' homes for Christmas again this year, but it turns out that they have family coming in from the 4 corners of the United States and don't have enough room. Now we need to decide on a different plan. We might go down to the time share in Las Vegas and hang out with some other friends, or maybe we'll just stay at home and sleep.

Work has been slow, but seems to be picking up a little. It always does towards the end of the year.

Chris (old mission friend), Karissa, and their son Landon are coming down Friday to hang out and stay over. They've been living with Karissa's parents while their new home is being built and just wanted a night away. It's going to be a lot of fun. We haven't really hung out much over the last year it seems, so this will be some good catch up, good food, good games, basically good times.

Well, I think that's enough for now. I've got to take a shower and go to sleep.

Back from St. George

Last week was tough at work for me. Not much going on with any of my clients. It was great to get away for the weekend to St George and recharge. We stayed with the Todds and hung out with all the kids and grandkids all weekend. It's great when all the little ones just pile up on us and play.

Also, our good friends Brent and Andrea just had their baby (Gabriel) a week ago so we spent time with them too.

I thought I was keeping in pretty good shape with basketball and volleyball each week, but a little game of two-hand touch football has shown me new levels of soreness in some areas that I haven't used in a while. It was still fun no matter how much I'm paying for it now. I do wish I had brought cleats though. It would have been that much better.

Sunday it was tough to leave. There was great food and some great times just relaxing on the couch. We didn't get home until close to midnight.

Well, I'm back to work today and I feel much more energized than last week...so mission accomplished.