I'm slowly making my way through writing up about our amazing trip, but it's slow going and I didn't want to forget any of the details of our Thanksgiving Week, so I thought I'd do a little recap here before diving into our travel posts.
THE BAD: 1. Our car totally went kaput driving 70mph down the freeway while driving my brother, Matt, to the airport. I was barely able to maneuver off the freeway to a parking lot, where my brother had to Uber the rest of the way and I had to call someone to rescue me. (see below for more details)
2. I got a full-blown stomach bug on Thanksgiving Day and spent the entire day in bed with zero appetite and feeling miserable.
3. They fixed our car for a somewhat reasonable amount, told us it was ready to pick up, then called us back a while later, and said, "never mind, it's still being weird." We still haven't heard the new verdict.
THE GOOD: 1. My sister, Kristina, and her family (husband and 5 kids), plus my brothers, Nate and Matt, came to visit. They came to town for the BYU-OU football game (a game my Dad would have LOVED) and Kristina and Nate stayed for Thanksgiving.
2. Ellie and Emma came home from Rexburg and Provo, and Cami and Lucie flew in from Alabama for Thanksgiving, so we had everyone home but Adam (still on his mission) and Garrett (who was working crazy shifts at the hospital and couldn't get off).
3. We had a lot of fun baking and just hanging out together. We also visited the Orem Temple open house, went to Luminaria at Thanksgiving Point, and got several inches of snow.
4. My nephews, Manuel and Isaiah, got baptized while they were here. They are a year apart in age, but the older one was pretty nervous and wanted to wait for his brother to do it at the same time.
5. No one else (except Lucie and me) got the stomach bug and thankfully it was only a one-day thing.
6. Lucie stayed behind when Cami flew home and I get a bonus week of Gigi time!
THE FUNNY: My nephews' baptism was definitely the most entertaining and memorable baptism I'd ever been to in my entire life. They were both a bit nervous about getting baptized and that nervousness translated into extreme silliness. There was potty humor, there was giggling, they screamed as they went underwater, one of them screamed, "I'm blind, I'm blind," as he came up out of the water, and the other kicked his dad in his sensitive parts because he'd been instructed by an older sibling that he may as well, because he'd be forgiven for it anyway. It was definitely irreverent, but knowing their background of trauma (they were adopted out of the foster care system a few years ago), it was honestly beautiful to see them overcome their fears and embrace it in the best way they knew how.
THE TENDER MERCIES: As inconvenient as it was for the car to break down during a busy holiday week when I had a million places to be, there were so many tender mercies and little miracles that happened with it, that I need to capture them here, so I don't forget.
Tender Mercy #1. It was me driving it in a populated area, not Glen in the middle of nowhere on his way to Saint George. He drives that car to Saint George 95% of the time and I only requested it because of Lucie coming to town.
Tender Mercy #2. I had 3 separate trips to make to SLC that day and the car broke down on the trip when there would be the fewest people on the road (at 5:30am).
Tender Mercy #3. It all went down (power steering stopped working and car started losing power) right at an exit, so I was able to maneuver off the freeway quickly and safely.
Tender Mercy #4. Our AAA membership is all up to date, so they were able to come tow the car to our mechanic with little stress.
Tender Mercy #5. This car literally has 230,000 miles on it and has had very few problems, so honestly it's a tender mercy it's lasted as long as it has. We clearly need a new car soon, but we are hoping to get it running again and working well enough to hand off to Adam when he gets back from his mission.
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