We Are Thankful

Phew... it's been a busy couple of weeks!

A few days before Thanksgiving my pop came out for a visit. Actually, the great city of Sandy sent him to Durham of all places for some city business. Could we have been any more randomly lucky?!? London was so surprised to see her grandpa when we went to meet him and some other Sandy City folks at a restaurant. Her eyes got huge, she turned and gave me a look that said "Mama, grandpa's been here the whole time? You've been holding out on me!" and went right to him. Thanks for staying a few extra days with us, Pop. We really loved having you here!


After my dad left, London got sick. We may have to rethink this family visiting thing. After we all left Ryan and Candice's house in Arizona, Cubbie ended up in the hospital for a couple of days. Clearly having family leave is too traumatic for our little ones. Anyway, I had a lot of late nights sleeping on the couch with L, trying to keep her fever down. Fortunately, she was feeling a lot better by the time Thanksgiving came around.

For Thanksgiving we had two other couples come over to our house for their first Thanksgiving. Marcelo and his wife Cynthia are from Brazil. Yann is from France and his wife Olivia is from China.


This has been one of our favorite things about being in Durham. We love meeting new people who are so different from us. We hang out with these two couples often and they are some of the neatest people we have met. We have a great time sharing our cultures with each other. And, I could eat Cynthia's Brazilian cooking for a week straight. Yum.

But, this day it was our turn to do the cooking. Brandon cooked a wonderful turkey and I handled most of the side dishes. Our foreign friends had a lot of questions about what each dish was and how to eat it properly. It's kind of funny to see a traditional Thanksgiving meal through the eyes of a newcomer. Cranberries on meat? Sweet potatoes with marshmallows on the top? There's WHAT in that pie? Pumpkin?!? They were a little reserved about eating a pumpkin pie, but in the end, they all found it tasty. All and all the meal went off without a hitch. London loved all the attention lavished upon her by Cynthia and Olivia. We even survived Yann and Olivia being kind enough to bring us a nice bottle of wine as a gift. :)

Bran carving the turkey

The table all set

London sticking olives on her fingers

About two hours after everyone left, it was my turn to get sick. We were so lucky Brandon had a few days off from school so he could watch L while I was flat in bed. We were less lucky to have Brandon get his turn with the sickies start the day before school was to start again. He had a really rough week since he couldn't miss classes, but somehow he managed to beat the bug. London really enjoyed having dad spend so much time down on her level.

Now we're all feeling better. Brandon is gearing up for finals next week and London and I are busy making plans for our trip out to Utah in a couple of weeks. We're so excited!