Thanksgiving 2021

The week before Thanksgiving, Cade had an awesome opportunity to be a part of the Western International Band Clinic. It was a weekend long band festival that he auditioned for and was selected to be a part of. We dropped him off on a Friday evening and picked him up Monday afternoon. He spent all day Saturday, Sunday rehearsing and then the various ensembles performed on Monday. He got to stay in a hotel and eat, sleep and breathe band for a bit! The only bummer is that they weren't allowing any audience members so I watched his group perform on a livestream from home and Dan made the trek up to seattle from work since his office is at least 30 minutes closer than our house is. At least when we go to All-State in February we'll be able to hear him perform in-person! Good job Cade!

After Cade's band clinic it was only a few days before we were on the road to Boise for Thanksgiving! We drove all day Wednesday and arrived just in time to participate in the big day. We stayed with the Charles and Sarah McBride family and enjoyed turkey and all that with them, and his sister Kristina, their family and his parents.

Your butter just isn't good enough if it hasn't been molded into a turkey :)

We've taken up a new hobby- charcuterie! This was our first time putting a board together and it was a hit! We haven't stopped snacking on cheeses, crackers and meats since!

Family time always means game time! I did NOT realize a picture was being taken in this moment, though clearly everyone else did, lol

Dan has even more family that lives in the Boise area, but not everyone could come for Thanksgiving Day itself. So we stole a tradition from my side of the family called Friday Pie Day! Let's be honest, most of us are way to full to really appreciate pies on Thanksgiving, so we saved (most of) the pie for Friday and had even more people over for food and games.

We were trying to get a whole group picture, but Dan got in on the posing before the rest of us were ready!

I think this is pretty close to everyone that lives in the Boise area, plus Phillip and Michelle and our family. Most the little kiddos were upstairs playing happily- didn't want to disturb that!

Saturday, the adventurous folks went up to the Hot Springs on cooold day. I was not one of those adventurous folks that day. Instead I went shopping with Charles and Sarah to Deseret Book and went out to lunch. Much more my speed, lol!

What a great way to kick off our holiday season of 2021! We love living within 8 hours of so much family and we had such a great visit. On our way home, since the weather wasn't an issue, we took a longer route home by Mt. Hood. That was Cade's idea, since he doesn't love driving on main interstates, he thinks they're boring. It was worth the extra drive time because there was a spectacular view of Mt. Hood from our car!

 

And as soon as we got back into Washington it POURED the rest of the way home. Thus began our very rainy, wet and cold Christmas season!