A Thanksgiving for the Books

Sof in all her cuteness.

For months we had been planning to rendezvous to Moab for Thanksgiving, something I felt uneasy about, so we made a last-minute hair-brained decision to go celebrate with my family in Cedar instead.

Greg got to pick up Pilgrim Sofi from Preschool

I don't know why I get such a kick out of Greg wearing my Willy Wonka sunglasses, but I do.

The trip was going great until we reached the top of the big pass between Scipio and Filmore and all hell broke loose from there. The Check Engine light had flashed on when we left town, but like dummies we thought nothing of it, because that light had been on for known reasons before. But, at the top of that pass, the light started blinking. So, Greg pulled off at the ONE exit there at the top, and I frantically called my Dad who miraculously answered, even though he was teaching school. He told us to slowly make our way south, and keep an eye on the gauges, which were all registering normal. We made it the 4.1 miles to Filmore, where Greg found a guy who could test our car for us. The car tested "random misfires" (super unhelpful), but the guy reset the computer for us. After resetting the car, it drove completely normal, so we sailed south into Cedar without a hitch.

Battling Claire in the backseat while we tried to figure out the car. Sof was content to watch a million movies and was completely clueless to her surroundings. Claire and I found a beautiful solid black horse, who could be the doppleganger to my Black Mare, Keylargo. Claire was made for farm life. We are soul sisters, she and I.

My little sister MaKaty is doing swim team this year, her Senior year, just to spite our dearest Mother. Luckily she had a meet the night we made it to Cedar, so we were able to go watch her swim. She's not too shabby!

Princess Sofia looking beautiful after letting Katy curl her hair.

We attempted to take Family pictures at SUU, and I have since lost an SD card with lots of the pictures and many of Claire I never uploaded to my computer. I deserve to be shot!

Claire slept okay. 

Sof is like her mama and loves drinking cream straight from the carton!

Thanksgiving was with the Jolley side of the family this year, and I was really excited for it, because I haven't been able to have a Thanksgiving with them for 10+ years. It was a lot of fun!

Waiting for the food with Grandpa.

Dante is the best dog and lets Claire follow him around.

My grandma's toys haven't changed in 27+ years, and why should they? I snuck down and got a video of Sof playing on the same tramp I used to play on. I love it!

Every year there is a Gift Exchange, and while I fought the idea from the start, I am so happy I caved and ended up participating with everyone. Sometimes I can be such a scrooge, and need to remember that Christmas is fun and Sof needs to have fun memories despite her moody mama.

Sof opening her gift.

My Grandma's joy has always been in her posterity. I always love snapping pictures of my girls with her whenever we are in town. Sofi has told me her favorite thing about my Grandma, is her smile.

I never mentioned that after we made it to Cedar, my Dad and Greg spent a few hours on the car, trying to figure out where the "random misfires" were coming from. Turns out our car has 6 spark plugs, and only 2 are easily accessible, and both checked out, so my dad had Greg put some fuel injector cleaner into the gas tank to see if that could flush anything out. 

We had packed Greg's mountain bike and had planned on staying a few days in St George after Thanksgiving, so we loaded up after Dinner and headed south. 10 miles out of town, West of Kanarraville, our car died. Just like that. It was slowly losing speed, but I thought nothing of it, since we were going up a gradual hill and our car was pretty loaded down. But, when it shifted into a lower gear, it lost all power and just died. Weird. So, I called my Dad, who came to our rescue, with the help of my Uncle Danny. We were dead on the side of the road, and the kids were both beside themselves, but people were driving so crazy we didn't dare get them out of their carseats, so we sat there and waited. Helpless. I don't wish that experience on anyone.

There are things that I have come to miss  about living in Southern Utah. But it wasn't until the moment when my Uncle Danny and Dad both pulled up with their trucks and trailers, that I truly felt so relieved to be somewhere knowing I could call people, who would drop whatever they were doing and come to my rescue. Especially on a night when they were relaxing with family, in a warm house. But what did they do? Come to our rescue. My dad even brought us his truck, so that we could still go down to St George and have a fun time. Southern Utah will always have my heart, and I will forever be grateful that we spent Thanksgiving there instead of Moab.

The girls were so exhausted by the time we got to my Grandma's townhouse, that they had both fallen asleep in their carseats. I was too wound up, so I went to Target and shopped while Greg stayed at the townhouse and eventually went to bed himself. I got back to a quiet abode.

The next morning we ate breakfast and took a walk in the beautiful crisp air down to the St George Temple. It was there that we got the bad news about our car.

Cute Sof at the top of the stairs of the temple.

We got the call from my Dad that our car needed a new engine. Talk about a sucker punch to the gut! Greg and I were instantly stressed. We had two options. 1. Put a new engine in the car and put even more money into something we still owed on, or 2. Pay it off and hopefully find someone who will pay a little bit for it who can put a new engine in themselves. Car shopping is stressful! So luckily Sof was biking around the Temple Grounds and Claire was blissfully asleep in the stroller to realize how stressed Greg and I were. I'm glad our kids were enjoying our trip to St George.

Greg had been so excited to try out the new bike park in Santa Clara, that I dropped him off and took the girls to play at the awesome All Abilities Park just a few miles away. This park is seriously the best thing ever! And it was fun to spend a few hours distracted from our car situation.

Sofi's memory is amazing. She remembers thins from when was 2. 2 People! So she immediately recognized this place from 8 months previous when we went there for the first time.

It was so fun to think how big Claire has gotten since last March. She was only 6 months old and now she's big enough to hold on for dear life while Sof shook the heck out of that T-Rex!

Sof is such a social butterfly and has no fear of making friends. I need to take a page out of her book. She was so excited to be on this merry-go-round with all these kids.

There is the cutest little train that goes around the park, and its $1.50 to ride, so you better believe we waited in the long line!

She's so stylin!

Greg and I were still stressing about our car, so we packed everything up and headed back to Cedar Friday night to see if we could get anything figured out.

Mornings came early, thanks to this little girlfriend. Greg was polite enough to take her to the basement and binge on The Office while the rest of us slept.

Sofi loves her Aunt Katy. Whenever I ask her what her favorite part is about trips to Grandma's, she always says, "Aunt Katy." Melts my heart every time.

My dad was kind enough to let us bring his diesel back north, while our dead Deb stayed in Cedar where the mechanics could really figure out what the heck was wrong with her. We stopped and emptied her of our our trash/belongings and this is our final pic. Oh how I loved that car.

Claire rarely sleeps in the car, but she slept nearly the whole way back and was rocked to sleep by the roar of the Diesel. The whole way I tried to justify with Greg that we just needed to buy a truck. He wasn't convinced.

We came home to snow, and Sof was way too excited to get out of the car and help shovel.

One of Claire's favorite rooms in the house is the bathroom, and I found her perched in this drawer while we unpacked.

First snowman of the season, and I'm not sure what's cuter, Sofs goggles, or the itty bitty snowman.

Claire made herself right at home again by getting stuck under a kitchen chair. 

After we told Sof Deb was dead, she didn't skip a beat but instead shrugged her little shoulders and looked at me with her half-smile and said, "Maybe we can get a van." So matter-of-fact. That girl is amazing and I'm glad I have her in my life to insert little moments of comic relief.