Thanksgiving week

Elise came out to Vegas with her kids during the week of Thanksgiving.  While she was here we had a lot of fun.  One thing we made sure to do was visit the Giving Machine!  We allowed the kids to hav $5 each.  They chose to pool their money so that they could give some bigger items.  They all really wanted to buy chickens.  There was a debate how to spend the remaining money but when Rich showed up with $20 from a co-worker who asked Rich to use it at the Giving Machine it allowed for both of the remaining items.  William had really wanted to buy 100 polio vaccines because it would help so many people.  The other kids really wanted to buy a baby resuscitation kit because James probably wouldn’t be with us without the good medical care he received at birth.  It was really sweet to hear them talk about what they wanted to give and to be so excited about it.

I never like to cook the day before thanksgiving so we ordered pizza.  I spent the evening prepping several dishes and it was fun to chat with Elise while she kindly cleaned my china and crystal.

Elise planned to eat Thanksgiving with the Burnetts so we celebrated a day early.  Wednesday was spent cooking! While we cooked dinner William gave the Burnett kids some tennis lessons in the garage.

And then we feasted!  The food was delicious and I'm so glad that Elise made the trip to celebrate with us!

Thursday morning Rich, William, and Alex went to play football.  The other boys were feeling under the weather.  They got home right before Elise left.  Unfortunately she missed her dinner because they got stuck in SNOW in California!  Thankfully they were all okay and were able to meet up with Austin's brother's family for dinner.

We spent the day relaxing, working on William’s Family Life merit badge (we organized and sorted through our toys bins to donate toys), and set up Christmas decorations.  The Elders came by for a little bit to share a message with us.  That night we kept our 16 year tradition of watching Elf on Thanksgiving.