Memorable Thanksgiving!

I have been wanting to go and visit my best chum Melanie since they moved away a year ago. Mel and I had this trip planned for a long time, but we weren't sure it would really ever happen. And then the weather tried stop us with a blizzard warning for the exact time we were supposed to be leaving. Thanks to some advanced planning, prayers and some weather guys being WAY off, we flew to Wisconsin without a hitch!!

It was so much stinking fun! Our kids loved playing with all the new toys and getting reaquainted with the boys.

Brady is trying to navigate the cowboys helmet and Kade is showing off his bigness. Kade changed the most. When they left he was a toddler and now he is a big dude, he has a cute voice and a great mischievous smile!

Derek worshiped the ground Jackson walked on and had to eat and sleep by him. He loved playing ball and everything with him.

Kelli loved playing house with Walker and Kade.

We got the whole crew to sit still by watching a show. Isn't it cute?

This is Ty and Brady. They got a long as good as can be expected. Both were possessive and excessivly worried about what toy the other one had. It was cute though. Ty is such a cute and smiley little guy. He's taller and weighs more than Brady but that's okay Brady still stays in his crib to, so we'll keep him.

We caught this little exchange on film. It's just too cute to leave out.

Don't worry no harm done.

Some highlights include:

We went swimming.

Jake and Brian played raquetball.

We ate an amazing Thanksgiving dinner.

We hung out and visited.

The kids made a hut and looked at found Waldo.

BYU vs. Utah (however, that didn't end well at the Gunnell house)

The big kids and Dad's went to the YMCA to play around while->

Mel and I made homemade pasta.

Black Friday shopping- which was fun to watch and listen to the culture.

We played a few games and I won Settlers of Catan!!!!

With Mel's sewing skills and Serger we made skirts our of men's sweaters!

We took a tour of the area which isn't near as big as I expected it would be.

We played some darts.

I had fun playing with her fancy camera.

The adults went out for a peaceful dinner.

The pasta was fun for me because I haven't made it for a while, and Mel hasn't made it for even longer. I also knew that Mel could make a lot better pasta sauces than I can. In fact, on the plane ride home I got a little snooze and dreamt about noodles and marinara sauce!

We thought we made lots of noodles but we pretty much ate them all. I stuffed myself on pasta and all other good things we ate. It seemed that we were the always the last ones finished.

This photo makes me laugh because we were trying and trying to get the kids to take it. They struggled and struggled and we ended up posing for like 10 minutes.

Did I mention how great it was to catch up and chat. We really didn't stop chatting. In fact, during our tour of the city we almost missed some important details.

Somehow we got talking about the hairyshoefairy and saw her post about sweater skirts. We got ambitious ran to the 'DI' aka: Goodwill WHA-LA!! We made three skirts. One of which only took a half an hour. It was fun and I am excited to wear them.

This is Kelli's skirt, it's for her baptism! I really like how it turned out. We made flowers out of the neck band and attached the skirt.

I knew they wouldn't be hard but I didn't feel confident enough to try them on my own. Mel is really good and she knew what to do, and now I feel like I can do them by myself now. For those unaware of this flaw, I don't do new things easily. I need someone to hold my hand and help me through it. It's not a good flaw to have it holds me back sometimes. I would like to say that I am working on it but that's not really true, I have too many other flaws that need more pressing attention. So needless to say I was excited to have Melanie help me with this!!

Kelli is really excited about them too, it looks so cute on her.

All in all it was an amazing vacation!! It was so much fun!

I recommend it to everyone. I think we might make a tradition of going away for thanksgiving!

Thanks Mel and crew!

PS: a few unimportant side notes.

We packed and left our house in an hour and a half to get ahead of the 'blizzard' and needless to say we forgot a few things. Mostly me, I didn't pack enough clothes and totally had a brain-fart on the PJ department.

The trip was really for me. I wanted to go visit and Jake went along with the idea. He and Brian did their fair share of fatherly duties (not baby-sitting because they are fathers.) But I am so thankful that Jake supported me in this trip. And I know he had a great time too.

Kelli pulled a muscle in her hamstring from doing too many cartwheels, but it didn't stop her for long.

Brady didn't do so good at meal times, it was really annoying.