For Thanksgiving all the Eastons gathered in Park City for a weekend of fun. We swam at the local pool, played lots of creative games made by Teresa and Nani to honor Randy or just have a laugh, went for walks, ate lots of food, snowflake making, Gus's birthday party, bonfire with roasted starbursts, wrote missionary letters, and spent hours hanging with cousins - so of course the kids never wanted to leave.
The Thanksgiving spread was incredible, no surprise. I filled my plate with so many side dishes I never even had any of the four turkeys we cooked.
And then there were all the pies - wow! This pic doesn't even show all of them.
The family asked Greg to take a photo of everyone as a present to Nani and Randy. It took some exploring but Greg found a place we could all fit without getting houses behind us.
Somehow I became the assistant, moving people around and trying to make things look balanced. I guess all those years of family pictures paid off a little - Heather makes it look easy but it isn't.
The kids spent a lot of time watching Studio-C every morning before the parents got moving. We had a lot of late nights chatting and enjoying being together.
One night we went out for an adults only dinner - it was so lovely to hang out together without any kiddos. They are all really amazing people.
Mack choose to be ordained an elder that weekend so Randy could be there with us. He started chemo a few weeks later so we knew we wouldn't be seeing him in person for a while.
It was cool to have all these amazing uncles and cousins participate.
One day while the others went into the mountains to chop down Christmas trees we drove up to Tom's property to celebrate Easton's birthday. We were only there a few hours but the kids loved riding the four wheeler, snowball fights with Nora, whipped cream fights, and a delicious cake made by Mia.
The boys went to a BYU vs. Utah basketball game with the Pertersens. There might have been a lot of trash talk mixed in with all the love. While they were at the game Kate and some other girls went to Chitty Chitty Bang Bang with Gayle.
The kids were sad to say goodbye and settle in for the long ride home, which became even longer when the van started wigging out on us right out of Boise. The transmition gear light was flashing, as were several other lights. Ultimately, Greg decided we'd better drive the van to a shop. We parked at the Honda Dealership in Boise and Brett Bishop headed out to come get us (we have the best neighbors!). While unpacking our van we managed to break the pie pan - good times. We were all very grateful to get home that night - grateful the van didn't play it's tricks in the middle of nowhere - grateful for a fabulous long weekend - grateful for good neighbors and family.
