Laudie Family: Thanksgiving in Utah

After 5 years, we finally made it back to Utah for Thanksgiving! We left on Thursday the 24th and came back on Monday the 30th. This was our first adventure flying out from Ohio with the whole family, and it went pretty well. The kids handled the plane ride decently - considering they didn't sleep AT ALL. But there weren't any major meltdowns, so that was good!

It was exciting to get to see Mike's family again. We hadn't seen them since the previous Christmas - meaning they haven't met our little Matthew yet! Grandma and Grandpa definitely were loving on our little chunky monkey! They couldn't get enough of him, and he definitely loved the attention!

We spent most of the week just relaxing, catching up on some sleep, and playing games with the family. Amy had a blast playing with all of aunts and uncles and cousins! She especially loved jumping on Grandma's trampoline (see the forthcoming Christmas post to see the result of that!).

The weather really was beautiful, especially on Thanksgiving day! It was bright and sunny - resulting in boys playing football and then a couple rounds of croquet. Thanksgiving lunch of FANTASTIC of course (it's all about the gravy, as Mike's mom would say... and the gravy was fabulous!).

Mike of course took his turn in the kitchen, making some homemade biscuits from scratch to go along with some sausage gravy. Ben was his helper (love the Strawberry Shortcake cup Ben... work it!).

We also got to see Mike's Grandma Laudie on Saturday. We weren't able to make it to her 90th birthday party (because we were in Ohio, of course), so it was fun to see her and let her remeet Amy and meet little Matthew.

Mike is not in this picture because he scored some tickets to the BYU - Utah game (his secret reason for wanting to go to Thanksgiving in Utah!) thanks to his Dad and brother Jim, and the game-goers had to take off early to get to their seats! And what a game it was! Go Cougars! The boys of course rushed the field!

(sorry for the picture quality - stole these off of Joy's facebook!)

We also got to meet this little bundle joy - Shayla, Jon and Carrie's new baby girl! Matthew and Shayla checked each other out...

...then he attacked her, so they had to be separated!

Amy got some special Grandma / Grandpa time! They made a run down to the corner mart for a soda and treat on day, and then there was some special Grandma M&M cuddle time one morning! You can always count on Grandma's to have candy - even first thing in the morning!

And just as a shout-out to Grandma's new kitchen... can we all say WOW! So nice! What an improvement! I can't believe what a difference a couple feet make!