Giving Thanks

This past Thanksgiving was a very special one. It was my family's first Thanksgiving away from home. A couple months ago Philip and I told my family that we would not be able to make it home for Thanksgiving this year. They decided that it would be fun for them to come to us! My dad booked a nice house in Estes Park for the Tuesday through Saturday of Thanksgiving week. Philip and I were thrilled that would would be spending Thanksgiving with my family!

My family arrived on Tuesday and we drove up to Estes Park that evening. The house was beautiful and very cozy! It had a hot tub, fireplace, and a very elaborate deck system! We made a major shopping trip on Wednesday because we were planning on cooking an all-out Thanksgiving dinner! We also went to downtown and did a little shopping on Wednesday. Thursday we starting cooking early in the morning in order to have a wonderful Thanksgiving lunch! My mom cooked a beautiful turkey, Timothy made some delicious gravy, Lindy made the stuffing, I made the sweet potato casserole and green bean casserole, Philip made the cranberry sauce, and Renee helped with everything!

We had a great Thanksgiving and spent lots of time eating and relaxing. My mom made a pecan and pumpkin pie and I made this amazing chocolate peanut butter dessert! We ended the day by watching the last Texas vs. Texas A&M rivalry game that may be played in a while. Unfortunately, A&M lost. Philip, Lindy and my dad worked on a 2,000 piece puzzle that didn't get finished. Philip kept trying to get me to do it, but I am just not a puzzle person.

Friday we enjoyed yummy leftovers and did a little more shopping. Estes Park has an annual Christmas parade the day after Thanksgiving that we were looking forward to going to. We headed out all bundled up for the cold. As we were standing on the street with thousands of other people waiting for the parade to start, it starts snowing VERY hard. At first it was kind of fun but then it wasn't. It wasn't technically a blizzard, but it kind of felt like one. None of us had dressed for a blizzard. After about 5 minutes our clothes were wet because the snow was so wet. We decided to skip the parade and head to dinner at the Twin Owls Steakhouse. The food was delicious!

This beautiful husky was right next to us on the street. His name was Miko and he was so sweet!! 

Friday night Timothy, Philip and I hot tubbed out in the snow after we got back from dinner. I brought up the idea of doing snow angels and of course Timothy just had to go and do it to prove he wasn't a wimp. Then of course Philip did it. I had no choice but to do it also. It was a lot of fun! Timothy even did it again face first while my parents videoed him. It was like we were kids again.

All in all, we had a wonderful time together. I got to spend lots of time with baby Jacob. He is such a wonderful cute baby! He has set the bar really high for cuteness of babies in our family!

We also got to witness a really cool buck fight right outside our house. They fought for a good 5 minutes!

The last day Renee and I ended up with the exact same outfit on by accident. We thought it was pretty funny, and of course we had to take a picture.

Philip and I are so thankful that my family was able to come out and spend Thanksgiving with us. It would have been a very lonely Thanksgiving without them!