Thanksgiving and Counting Our Blessings

November 30, 2014

Thanksgiving and Counting Our Blessings

For Thanksgiving this year, we were invited to my Uncle Ben and Aunt Darlyn's house in Modesto, CA. My parents and grandparents were also going. We always have such a blast at their house! I had to work a part day Wednesday so we left Wednesday afternoon and had planned to stay with Greg's mission trainer, Kevin Salls, and his wife, Alexa that night. We made great time driving to Sparks, where Kevin and Alexa live. We were exhausted but love spending time with Kevin and Alexa so we stayed up super late catching up with them. We had so much fun and so wish they lived closer! We had to get up early the next morning to drive 3 1/2 hours to Modesto before Thanksgiving dinner. We were going on about 4 hours of sleep but it was worth it! We got to Modesto and jumped right in to helping. Ben and Darlyn always have a ton of people over for Thanksgiving and have tons of food. This year they did 3 turkeys: an oven roasted turkey, a BBQ one, and a smoked one. I can't even pick which one I liked the best because they were all so delicious. After dinner, Greg took a nap and I caught up with family and got to play with some of the cute babies that were there. I woke Greg up when we were having pie. The whole counter in their huge counter was filled with desserts. After we played games and watched the super disappointing 49ers game. It was a great day. We are so blessed with such a fun and awesome family. We laughed so hard this weekend. I'm so grateful that we were able to make it to California, make great memories, be members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, and have jobs so we can take care of our needs. On Friday after Thanksgiving, we had a full and fun day. We went and played Laser Tag and had so much fun! After that we went to Pottery Magic, which used to be Color me Mine. I picked a serving bowl and painted it. I am nervous that it will look super streaky but I am excited to see it when it's done. Greg did a mug and it looked great! I can't wait to see it after it's fired. We went back to Ben and Darlyn's for a delicious dinner of grilled tri-tip, grilled onions, funeral potatoes, and green bean casserole. After dinner we went and saw Mockingjay. The movie was super well done but it was extremely hard to watch. It was very intense and sad... We also knew we were in California when some guys came and sit in front of us and smelled so strongly of pot. It is disgusting! We got home and played some more games and had great times! Saturday morning we got up to head back home. We stopped in Sparks again to have lunch with Kevin, Alexa sadly had to work. We went to this restaurant in a casino called Rosie's Cafe. I had fish and chips and they were delicious!! And a great price. Greg got a chicken Vesuvius sandwich and he let me have a bite. It was super good. We laughed and had fun but then had to be back on our way. We got home late and hurried to get the essentials put away so we could get in bed. It was so great to get a full night's sleep! We're definitely feeling the lack of sleep though. We loaded up on vitamin C and zinc today hoping we can kick this bug before it really hits. Funny story: when we left Modesto, we left a little later than we wanted so we wanted to hurry and fill up gas and get on the road. So we look up the cheapest gas prices around and find one that was cheap but in the opposite direction we wanted to go. But Greg wanted to go there so we did. We get there and it was only going to let us pay inside which we both hate. So Greg decided to drive to the Costco instead. I just wanted to go and wasn't very happy about having to find the Costco. I pull the directions up on my phone and we were almost there when Greg missed the turn. There wasn't anywhere to easily turn around so we just stopped on the gas station down the road. They required we pay inside also so I was pretty mad at this point that we drove all over to avoid that and it was just a huge fiasco. So we go on our merry way and I calm down and everything is just fine. This morning when we were driving, a light comes on that says "gascap." I go, "Uh-oh. What does that mean?? Is it not tight enough??" And Greg looks at me and says "I have to tell you something. I lost the gas cap..." Turns out at the first gas station in Modesto, he forgot to put the gas cap back in and then when we got to the next gas station he realized what had happened. He didn't want to tell me because he was afraid I would be mad and I was already in a bad mood. So he looked up how much gas caps cost and wasn't going to tell me until after he replaced it. Haha I was laughing so hard! We stopped and bought one really quickly so the light would go away. I have been laughing about this all day!