Thanksgiving Report

So here is the low down on the show down: We had a wonderful Thanksgiving in Utah. It was kind of nice to feel the cold weather, it really made it seem like the Holidays had arrived. I even got to break out some of my winter sweaters, which I LOVE ( Matt does too...because they are so huggable...any excuse for a hug, I always say). We hit some weather and traffic on the way to Utah, but arrived safely at a very late hour. Did that stop us...no it did not! We continued to stay up until after 2 a.m. (yes, the girls too...what wonderful parents we are. HA!) helping the Jeppson family make pies. It is tradition that all the women in the big Jeppson clan get together the night before Thanksgiving for "pie night". It is very fun, and goofy, mainly because we stay up so late! I was excited to attend this year, since past years I have not been able too. Anyway, we ended up making 4 pumpkin pies, 2 lemon pies, 3 Chocolate pies, 1 Blueberry pie, and 1 banana cream pie. Now you know why we were up so late! Go pie!!

The actual day of Thanksgiving was Heaven! I had my husband home, my girls with me, and we were surrounded by family eating great food. You can't get much better then that! We got to meet our new niece, Shanna, who is a complete little angle. Cora is constantly bugging me now that we need to go to the store and buy our own real baby. Hmmmm....wished it worked that way!

Since Matt missed most of the Holiday season last year ( he practically arrived home for his leave Christmas Eve), I have made it a point to immerse him in Holiday season cheer and activities. Basically this means that I drug him out on "black Friday" to shop! Oh, the cruel one that I am! I actually think he enjoyed it! We were able to leave the kids with my parents, and we got a lot of Christmas shopping done. Even though we arrived late ( no, we did NOT start shopping at 4 a.m.!), we were still able to acquire some sweet door busters. We were very proud! It has been forever since we have been able to shop with just "us", it was kind of romantic. Matt treated me with some fabulous Chinese food for lunch, it was a wonderful date!

Sunday arrived, and back to California we went. Back to 80 degree weather, light jackets in the morning, and shorts and sandals. Hopefully, Utah will cooperate and give us some more winter weather during Christmas. Our drive home was smooth sailing all the way to Las Vegas. It was perfect....Until Vegas! That is when the traffic jam began. We live 2 or 2 1/2 hours from Vegas, but because of the stop and go on the freeway, that is how long it took us to reach the border of California. Then we still had another hour or so of driving, at least. With the slow traffic this took longer then normal also. It was so grueling, Matt commented that he had never seen such a bad traffic jam in his life! Things to learn! Next year we will not travel home on Sunday!

We were sad that the weekend came to a close so quickly. While we got to see many family, we were not able to see everyone, or spend the time we would have liked with everyone. We are looking forward to Christmas back in Utah, and we are looking forward to spending more time with everyone!