Long weekend!

Where to start... Thanksgiving has always been my favorite holiday. I can remember when I was younger it was guaranteed that my grandpa and grandma Reading would fly in to Utah and spend Thanksgiving weekend with my family. I loved my grandpa and grandma coming into town and always enjoyed the time spent with them. Since both of them are gone now, Thanksgiving always has a bitter sweetness. I still feel the same excitement yet, its not quite the same anymore.

This year was my families year to eat with and because everyone on that side of the family is planning on coming into town for Spencer's homecoming, they all did something else this year. Which just left my mom, dad and Anna at home. My mom told me that Bret and I should just eat with Brets family and they would go to Golden Corral. Of course when my mother-in-law heard this, she invited them to eat dinner with the Duehlmeier side of the family. My parents accepted and I was lucky enough to get to eat with both sets of parents. Coming from a small family who is spread out from the Pacific Ocean to the Atlantic Ocean, I always am a little overwhelmed when Brets (Duehlmeier side) of the family gets together. I think the last time I counted there are 63 Aunts, Uncles, Cousins, Cousins Spouses and their children on the 'D' side. Even though not all of them were there for dinner this year, it sure made for a good dinner with lots of family. I always said I wanted to marry into a big family and I did get a BIG family. When we get together it is a little too much like 'My Big Fat Greek Wedding'.

McKinley and I after finding our Christmas Tree

On Friday, I usually spend that day (or morning) shopping with my mom. We always have started out at Smiths Marketplace for their half off socks sale. This year though, I passed on getting up early. Well kinda... This year we all (Brets family) had the day after off so we could go cut down our Christmas tree. I don't want to go into much detail but its a tradition that Brets mom has now done for 30 Years! We go up to Heber and get our tree permits at the beginning of November and then we plan a day as a family to go cut them down. This year was quite an adventure. My father-in-law took a different route and we followed him up this hill (thank goodness there was no snow) All the way up I was wondering if he was planning on all of us taking home a quaker, because there were NO pine trees. As we got to the top there were very few trees to choose from and the wind was SO bitter cold. But we all got dressed and went out. I think this was the year that we all got our best trees yet.

Our Tree and us (see hardly and other trees in the background)


Our tree decorated

Saturday as most of you know was The "Holy War" UofU vs BYU. And as I am sure many of you know, our blood in this family is Blue. We watched the game on the inlaws big screen (I only wish it was in HD) It wasn't the most exciting game until the last two minutes. When I saw Max Hall let go of the ball of 4th and 18, I think that my heart stopped beating. When the ball was caught we all were jumping up and down and screaming! The final score 17-10 BYU! GO COUGARS!!!