Happy Thanksgiving 2007: Dinner, Shopping, and Animal Safari

We had a wonderful thanksgiving last week. The girls let us sleep in until 9:00 am. That was an awesome holiday treat. Then we enjoyed a nice leisurely morning. Emmeline loved the parade, which really surprised me. A little after noon we all headed over to Atlanta Georgia to have dinner at my Aunt Sara and Uncle George's place. It was a full house. My parents, along with Lucy and Leland, drove down from Virginia and my Grandpa and Grandma Jorgensen flew in from Utah. Plus George's mom was also there. Thedinner was great with all the traditional food. I especially enjoyed the sweet potatoes in orange peel bowls and my yummy green beans. and of course the pie. Aunt Sara had a fun family music history game for us to play which was particularly fun because there were so many differnet generations playing. On friday my mom, aunt sara, and I all went shopping. . . although we did not get to any stores by 4:00am. We are not that dedicated. We didnt get out and about until around 10. We still found some good deals and had a fun time. I enjoyed having a shopping trip without hauling around two little girls. I usually dont get to browse and look around as much as I would like so it was a really nice treat for me. In the afternoon we all went to this animal safari place.It was pretty crazy because you drive around in these ugly vans and you can feed the animals as you drive through the park.The animals come right up to your van and stick out their tongues for the food. They had cows, buffalo, sheep, deer, and other things. They also had some animals caged up. . .a rhino, camel and a couple of ligers. It was actually pretty fun. Emmeline loved seeing all of those animals up close. And she loved feeding them, although that meant dropping the food out of the van before the animal actually came over.lol. My dad was such a good sport because he was the driver and for the entire hour we were driving in the park he had at least 10 people yelling, "stop!!!" "Go" "slow down" "faster" and usually he was getting different directions at the same time. But he took it in stride. He is a very good grandpa. After the Safari we all settled down with some delicious pizza. mmmm. Then Brett and I drove back home to Birmingham. It was a great thanksgiving!!

I know. . .October is over. . .

But I still have a couple things that happened in October that I didnt write about that I just wanted to quickly mention so I wouldnt forget.

1. 2007 Trunk or Treat. This years trunk or treat and carnival were so fun. Since I am still in the primary presidency I was still in charge of helping put the carnival together. It turned out great. I was in charge of making the root beer. I had never made home made root beer before and it was so much fun. I loved getting the dry ice and putting it in the cooler. And now that I know where to get the dry ice, I can see myself using it a lot. It is so awesome. Anyway, back to the trunk or treat. Since Emmeline was old enough to play the games and participate in the activities, Brett and I didn't have to run the cake walk. We got to take Emmeline around the carnival instead. It was so fun to take her to the games and help her play (even though I did miss the cake walk. After doing it for the past two years, it kinda felt like my "baby" and I had a difficult time seeing another couple do it differently then I did. But I guess it was time to say goodbye).

2. 2007 Primary Program.  The primary program this year turned out great. Even with the

 difficult and slow songs that the children had to learn, they did a wonderful job. Everyone had their parts memorized and they sang so beautifully. I was very proud of them.

3. Carving pumpkins. This year we went over to our friends (John and Alicia Cutts) house to carve pumpkins. Emmeline did a great job pulling out the seeds. Then she decorated her pumpkin with a marker while Brett carved it into a jack o lantern. The two pumpkins Emmeline and Brett did both turned out very cute.

4. Halloween 2007 Trick or Treating. The Birmingham South Side Police station is about 2 blocks from our townhouse. They were putting on a special Halloween activity for the community so we decided to go check it out. They had bags of candy to pass out to the kids. It had enough candy in it that we didnt feel like we needed to do any other trick or treating. Awesome, lots of candy in one stop. They also had face painting and cookies. It was a fun Halloween activity.

Aright, now I feel like I am caught up and can move on with life. There were just so many fun things going on in October. Yeah.

Welcome Back Brett--Never Leave Again

Well, I realize that November is halfway over and I have yet to post a single thing. On November 1 Brett left for New York and his MicroBio Conference. Apparently it went really well and he had several professional tech people asking him when he graduated saying they would be interested in having him come work for them. Brett got to talk to a lot of people in Academia and Industry and he got some ideas about what he would like and would not like in each field. So it was a good trip. Meanwhile. . .back at the ranch in birmingham. . .I was struggling along with the two girls. It is so funny because I used to be so independent. In college I had no problem driving for hours by myself or going out to eat at a restaurant (even Olive Garden) all by myself. Yeah, table for 1, no big deal. And I enjoyed having an evening or two all by myself to get lost in a good book. Funny how things change. Life was hard without Brett around. lol. Things went fine, the girls and I went to the zoo and the park and we even got to church (almost on time), and I did get involved in a fun series of books (the Twilight series by Sephanie Meyers). But none the less, I was very happy when Brett got home. Other than the bare minimum, I didnt accomplish much without him here. . .including a lack of posts. But he's back now and I've sorta gotten back on top of things here at home. Yeah for Brett. I hope he never leaves me again. :)