Thanksgiving Week!!

We had a great Thanksgiving week! I had the week off from work at Utah Tech and Jaiden had the week off from SUU. We went shopping for wedding dress and she narrowed it down to two dresses that she really likes! We will wait and check out some other stores. She isn't officially engaged yet, but since we know it will happen soon we wanted to set up some appointments while she was home for the break! (We did come back two months later to Bell Tower Bridal to buy the one that was her favorite!!) 

Monday night I met Tiffany Harding at Tuacahn so that could preview the musical, Elf, since we will be interpreting it in December. Tuesday Jenna had a dentist appointment and Jaiden and I went to another bridal place called Mae's bridal. This was a little rental shop in someone's house. But there wasn't a very big selection and she didn't find anything she was interested in. We stopped by a few possible venue places on the way home. 

Janika and Brandon's family arrived on Tuesday night. It was nice that they could come for so many days! Jase and Ellen's family, on the other hand, headed up north -- so they swapped places!! Ellen's brother, Danny, was getting home from his mission the day before Thanksgiving and having his Homecoming the Sunday after and so they went up for all of that!

Janelle and Bryton also came down. They stayed at his the Gustins, but came over for our Thanksgiving lunch and other activities. Jason also came down on Tuesday or Wednesday. Wednesday night we had the BIG two and a half hour interview with Jason!! The rest of the family watched a movie. It went well! We have the questions and answered documented for posterity, ha ha!  

Wednesday included a lot of baking. The girls were a huge help and Jenna made a ton of stuff. Then we had our Thanksgiving meal thursday around 1:00. Everything was delicious! 

We spent the day and evening chatting, playing games, watching movies, and just enjoying each other's company! Janelle and Bryton headed to the Gustins for their Thanksgiving dinner that night. 

Friday we went to the Mall to participate in the Light the World Giving Machines! It was the first time I had been to one. Jared and Hallie spent Thankgiving with her family, but decided to come down on Friday and so they met us at the Mall. We did the Giving Machine and then did a little shopping before heading back home! 

Jase and Ellen also went to the Giving Machine up north too! 

Saturday morning Jaiden and Jason left at 3:00 a.m. in order to drive clear to Arizona for Jason's friend's wedding!  It was a long drive, but they had a great time! 

Thanksgiving Blessing

My former missionary companion, Juliette Landsem Holdaway, now lives in Korea with her husband, who works for the military. Juliette also served her mission in Korea for a short time before serving in the ASL program in Atlanta, Georgia. She knew our son, Josh, was serving in Korea and made arrangements to pick up Josh and his companion and bring them to a nice hotel on base for a traditional American Thanksgiving feast!! It looks amazing! 

Not only that, but she had asked Josh and his companion what treats they missed from America that they weren't able to find in Korea. They surprised them with a total haul of treats!! Josh was in heaven!! Josh loves Takis and Korea doesn't have them and so he was excited to receive Takis along with everything else!! Hearing about this experience made my mama heart so happy! Thank you Holdaways for treating our missionaries!!  

Jaiden's Missionary Books!

I gave Jaiden her missionary books! I made them through Pixxibook.com. I had to split it up into two different volumes since she had so many pictures!! It was a ton of work editing the books! You actually can't edit the books directly, but since the books come from a blog (in this case, her missionary blog) I was able to edit various pages by editing the blog. So I was constantly going back and forth between the blog and the book preview until it looked close to what I wanted! It took a lot of time, but they turned out really nice! They were also really expensive -- $300.00, yikes! Thankfully Grandma Westra helped pay for them, which was a huge blessing! I hope they will be a treasured keepsake from her mission! 

Evan's Primary Program

The Sunday before Thanksgiving was Evan's primary program and so Rick, Jenna, and I went to their ward to watch. Evan did well! They had the teachers of each class come up and say a few words about their class and introduce their students. Then they had mock classes up on the stand near the sacrament table with two teachers holding a microphone and their class sitting in a half circle around them. They would ask their class questions and then have the students respond. Evan did well, especially since they accidentally put him in the wrong mock class and so he had to answer a question that he wasn't prepared for. But he handled it well and when it was his turn he answered "be nice," which was an appropriate answer for the question. 

Evan sang the songs well. The program leaders had the nursery kids come sing a song or two also and so Eli got to participate. There was a temporary hiccup when he dropped whatever it was he was holding for the song because he wanted a different one. But thankfully he recovered. The program was really cute! The one drawback was that it must not have been timed out very well and it went over by a good twenty minutes! The other ward was anxiously waiting to get in as everyone was leaving. We headed home and then Jase and Ellen and the kids came over for dinner later. 

Jenna: Sadies!!

 Jenna had a great time at Sadies!! 

Jenna was in the same group as her second cousin, Caroline Williams, so that was fun!