A Merkley Thanksgiving

Okay, I am officially not that great of a blogger.  My posts about things always seem to come two weeks after the fact.  But there are a lot of things going on in my life, and sometimes I just don't have time to sit down and write a nice post, complete with pictures.  So I wish I could say that I will be better, but...I doubt it. 

So, two weeks later, I am just getting around to posting about our Thanksgiving.  We had a full and happy house that weekend! Ben arrived first on Tuesday night, and was an invaluable asset in helping me clean and decorate the house for Christmas before everyone else came.  Never before have I gotten up all my Christmas decorations in one day (except the tree, of course)! He even did the dishes with Evie, which was pretty darn cute.

Chris and Rachel arrived with Jake on Wednesday evening, and we all did our last-minute preparations for T-day.  Rachel and I made the pies, and Rob checked that his injection turkey and brine turkey were marinating nicely.  He wanted to do two turkeys this year because last year we had a brine turkey at Shannon and Shane's, and it was divine!  But he'd also heard from a lot of people that deep-fried turkeys were the best turkeys they'd ever tasted.  So he decided to do both. 

Thanksgiving: the big day!  This was a wonderful Thanksgiving, I was so grateful to everyone for pitching in and helping as much as they could.  Rob handled both of the turkeys, with help from Chris, Rachel and I cooked (starting at about 10:30 until we ate at around 2:30), Chris entertained the kiddos by taking them sledding on the hill in our backyard. 

Jake fell down a lot at first, still getting used to his bulky snow clothes, and got a little sad.

He got the hang of it, though.

They had a great time sliding down the hill.  After Jake went in for his nap, Chris stayed out and played with Hallie and Claire for another good hour and a half.

And finally, it was time to eat!! We had deep-fried turkey, brine turkey, creamy mashed potatoes and gravy (with a surprisingly tangy flavor since it was made from the drippings of the brine turkey), yams and apples, green bean casserole, cranberry, ORANGE ROLLS (a new favorite of ours, thanks Rach for sharing your family's tradition with us!), stuffing, and as a last-minute addition, pretzel crust Jello with yummy cream cheese topping.  (We had pie, but we didn't end up eating it until later.)  Rob was kept busy between trying to monitor two turkeys, and Rachel and I were cooking like mad women!  It was so fun, though, and everything tasted absolutely DELICIOUS, as Thanksgiving always should. 

The spread.  With Rob, the turkey master.

Ready to eat! She and Jake were so cute talking to each other and playing with each other while we ate. 

The cooks!

Pregnant belly picture! Rachel is due in February and I in April.

My only regret is that we didn't take a picture of the turkeys before they were carved.  They looked absolutely scrumptious, all browned and yummy.  Thanksgiving afternoon we all relaxed.

Cousins

After turkey.  Claire and Hallie doing their best to pretend to be asleep.

That night began the insanity of Black Friday shopping.  While we were gone, Tim and Tam arrived with Baby Will.  They went to sleep like sane people.  On the other hand, we went to Wal-Mart at 10:00 PM, Herberger's at midnight, JCPenney at 4:30 AM, KMart at 5:00 AM, then Pamida at 6:00 AM.  Well, actually I was the only one that went to all those places, but we got some great deals and now Christmas shopping is virtually done! I was pretty exhausted on Friday though, and I ended up taking a nap for at least four hours.  We had fun hanging out together on Friday and just having a relaxing day at home.  We played games and enjoyed being together.

Evie holding her cute little red-headed cousin, Baby Will.  

And, according to our family tradition, the Saturday after Thanksgiving we always drive up into the mountains to cut down our Christmas tree. This year, we went with our friends the Birches and, of course, all the Merkleys who were staying with us that weekend.  We couldn't find our usual spot, but it worked out well because the Birches showed us another spot that was even better.  We both found lovely trees and had a fun time playing in the snow. 

Sweet little family!

Over the river and through the woods...

Chris--playing with the kids, as usual.

Taking a break.

We forgot to take a picture of our tree before we felled it, but I'll post some pictures of us decorating it.

We had an interesting experience while hiking in the snow to get our tree. When we pulled off the main highway, our three vehicles blocked the access to the road we were hiking.  I thought nothing of it, since it was a small mountain road which dead-ended after about a hundred yards anyway.  As we were searching for a good tree, we heard a vehicle coming up the road.  We flagged them down so we could warn them to drive carefully because there were lots of little kids playing at the end of the road.  The man driving rudely said "Are you the ones blocking the road?" And I cheerfully answered "That's us!" As they drove off, the man's wife muttered something snide and we thought no more of it.  Soon we each found a good tree and hauled them back to our cars parked at the highway.  The Birches were on a time crunch, so they had to leave before we got our tree strapped down.  They had already gone by the time we got our tree back to our van.  So part of the road was now clear to access from the highway.

As we were tying down our tree, peeling off everyone's winter layers, and loading up small children, the white truck reappeared out of the trees on its way back to the highway.  They were driving on the road, and when they saw us, they started gunning it just to be rude.  They slipped a bit on a slick spot and nearly ran into Tamera, who was holding newborn Will.  Just as they got to the section of the road that the Birches had blocked, their front driver's side tire sunk deep into the snow and ice, slanting the entire side of the truck downward.  They were stuck.  If we hadn't been blocking the road in the first place, they would have gotten stuck there on the way in, instead of the way out.  Despite their rudeness to us, we offered to help them.  Although neither of us had a truck that could physically haul them out, Chris offered to go get some branches to help their tires gain a little traction.  They snapped at us and heatedly refused our help.  As we were still preparing to leave, a truck hauling a flatbed trailer pulled up and a nice man got out, asking if we needed help and if we had a chain.  We told him we weren't the ones in trouble, and he went over to see if he could help the stranded truck.  We heard the woman and the man both tell him off, and shortly he came walking back shaking his head.  "They do not want my help," he said, and climbed back into his truck and drove away. 

I was absolutely floored by the behavior of these people.  They acted like sulky children, throwing tantrums because some tiny thing annoyed them.  And then when they truly needed help, they pushed away anyone who tried to offer.  Since there was nothing we could do to help them, and they wouldn't accept our help anyway, we had to leave them there, hopelessly stuck.  Rob and I were both pretty annoyed by their ridiculousness, and they left a bit of a bad taste in our mouths. 

Hallie was watching out the window of our van and asked, "Are those people stuck, Mommy?"

I answered, "Yes they are.  If we had a big truck and a big chain we could pull them out, but our van isn't big enough."

She was very worried about them and asked if we could say a prayer so that they could get out.  I was humbled and ashamed that I had to learn this lesson of loving our enemies from my five-year-old.  I told her that would be a wonderful idea, and we said a prayer for them as we pulled out.  I hope that they got out okay, but I doubt that there was any way that truck was moving without someone to pull them out. 

Interesting experience.  I came away very grateful for my sweet daughter who always has others' best interests at heart, and hoping to be a little more like her.  This is the girl who prays for the bullies in her kindergarten class who are mean to her.  She's so good and sweet. 

Overall, thanks to Hallie's sweetness, it was a great Christmas-tree-cutting excursion.  We stopped at Red Canyon Lodge on our way back home to have our traditional hot chocolate, which was still hot, although we had put the hot water in the car early that morning.  We had a fun time and got a great tree.  We all came home and the boys set up the tree in the tree stand and strung the Christmas lights on the outside of the house, and then we all relaxed.  I started wrapping the tree with lights, but about halfway through I decided to do it later so I could have more time with my family.  We all played lots of games and made some good memories.  It was fun to have a Merkley Thanksgiving, as those have been few in the history of our marriage.  I am so thankful for my family and for the gospel of Jesus Christ which lights my life, giving me direction and purpose.  I thank the Lord for my bounteous blessings.