Thanksgiving!

We spent the Thanksgiving weekend in St. George with my family. The weather was beautiful and the company was pretty good, too. I just love Thanksgiving. I love the simplicity of it, the lack of commercialization and the fact that I take the time to reflect on how very blessed I am. I truly feel thankful for all that I have. We had a pretty good crowd this year despite the fact that 3 of my brothers and their families weren't there. (Maybe one day we will all be in the same place at the same time.) I think there were 28 of us all together. We were joined by my Backman grandparents, my Aunt Ginny and Uncle Bill, My aunt Barb and Uncle Rod and their family (minus Megan's husband who was getting ready for a football game and couldn't make it.) Once it was time to get dinner ready, we sent the 9 kids outside to play so the 19 others could work in peace. (Actually they spent a lot of time outside anyway, but at that point it was a necessity.) They found plenty to do.
I love this photo of all the kids lined up. My kids love being with their cousins. (Something else we are thankful for.)
Lots going on in the house: Ralph slicing the turkey, with Nick on quality control and Rob moving stuff around.

The big kid table.

The little kid table.

More kitchen work.

And of course, some eating.

This was the really big kid table. For some reason, Shawn and I were seated here. Does that mean anything?
Instead of the typical Turkey Bowl football game, there was a rousing game of dodgeball, because what's more fun than trying to slam a ball into your own relatives? Sadly, I missed the fun because I was back at the other house waiting for Peter to wake up from an hours long nap, but thanks to Michelle, I still get to see the fun through the photos.

There's some serious intensity here from Shawn:

And from Jake, too. I can only hope they are trying to hit big people here and not the littles.










I'd say fun was had by all, and this may be a repeat event next time we are all together for Thanksgiving.


Dinner was delicious and it was fun to be with people we love. The nice weather didn't hurt either. There was plenty of golfing and being outside to make for a pretty decent weekend. (And now that it's over, I'm ready to listen to Christmas music.)