Our Planksgiving-Thanksgiving Weekend

Our Thanksgiving weekend was a good one, though less traditional than ever! T and I arrived in town early, early Tuesday morning, with my parents, Tressie and Matt arriving about 24 hours later. We spent Wednesday preparing for our "Planksgiving" feast that would take place later Wednesday evening in order to accommodate my brother in law's work schedule. A trip to Costco was in order for a few last minute items and we stopped to try on cute sweaters while we were there.

Wednesday evening we gathered. My family, Bruce's family, some friends from Bruce's department and our next door neighbors. We feasted on ribs (smoked by our neighbor), crab, shrimp, biscuits, salad and potatoes, not to mention a plethora of desserts. Everything was absolutely amazing and we ate until we were beyond stuffed. My favourite part of the meal was the adorable turkey place cards the girls had made to decorate the table. 

We all woke bright and early on actual Thanksgiving morning to watch Bruce and his friends from the PD play their annual Thanksgiving football game. We brought the puppies along and they had a great time playing while the rest of us watched the game and socialized. 

After the game, we went to Roy & Amy's house for brunch. While we were there, Tressie and the girls tried out some living room AcroYoga and Baby Shark Bait got festive with his headwear. 

Thanksgiving night, my family and Bruce's family (minus my brother in law) gathered once again for dutch oven beef stew, cooked in our fire pit. Another amazing meal, after which we had a little impromptu birthday celebration for Uncle Matt-Stache. Complete with fake mustaches all around. 

On Friday, we all went to see The Good Dinosaur, then browsed the shops at the mall. When we got home, we had just enough time to run over to my favourite waterfall so I could snap a few pictures of Tressie and Matt. As we were climbing into the car to head to the waterfall, my parents were just pulling in from the mall. I made them pose together for a quick photo and got my most favourite picture of them ever! Definitely a photo I will treasure always. 

Saturday morning my family all headed out. T and Horatio had a long drive back home and Matt had to be back in SLC for work on Sunday. We said our goodbyes then spent the rest of our weekend adjusting to our new family member... though honestly, it wasn't much of an adjustment at all. Other than remembering not to leave toys out where she could chew them... 

Saturday night we finished off our Planksgiving-Thanksgiving celebration with our annual holiday show. We took the kiddos to see the Phoenix Symphony's Pixar in Concert. We weren't quite sure what to expect, but knew there would be music from the scores of various Pixar films, with images projected onto a screen. We hoped it would be a bit like the Animation Academy at Disneyland. Well, the performance far exceeded any expectations we had. It was phenomenal. The music was amazing, the video clips were spot on with the music and my four hooligans were on their best behaviour. Even Man Cub was completely captivated. It wasn't our traditional Christmas themed performance, but it was amazing and I am so glad we went! I always love attending the Symphony.