Thanksgiving in Utah ~ aka: The Beginning of our Kitchen Saga

This tale  begins on November 15, Ethan and I got home from Denver around bedtime.  My parents had left earlier in the day and a friend had most of the kids. We picked them up and headed home, got them in bed, and ran a load of dishes.  

Sunday Ethan went to his meetings in the morning and I was lazing about.  When I was forced to get up to get breakfast for the kids I found that the dishwasher hadn't worked during the night (something that had happened in recent weeks, but never this obviously).  I could tell that no water had made it into the tub, so I tried running it again.  I told Ethan when he got home what had happened and when the cycle finished we checked and were flummoxed that we still had the same problem.

Over the next week I did dishes by hand and Ethan tried troubleshooting the dishwasher.  He tried all the electrical fixes that we could find in the manual and online.  Finally, on Sunday November 23 he pulled the machine out to do a physical check.  That's when we discovered a 12 inch tube that had been a feast for some rodent.  It was riddled with holes!  And the floor under it was wet... so now we knew where the water had been going... Ugh.

We borrowed a fan from a friend and hoped we could let it dry out.  Then on Monday, November 24 Ethan pulled up one of our floor boards (we had a laminate) and found that there was water at least 4 feet away from the dishwasher under our floor.  My dad recommended that we call our insurance.  So we did.

Tuesday the water mitigation guys came in and checked to see how bad the damage was and to begin the drying process.  I was supposed to host Thanksgiving at my house and was trying to figure out how it was going to be possible.  They told me I could probably work around all their equipment, but by the end of the day I was convinced we needed to escape the house.  After meeting with the contractor briefly and learning all that we were in for, I did my best to convince Ethan that we should drive to Utah.  Thankfully, I didn't have to work to hard to convince him.

Ethan was able to get Wednesday off so we hit the road.  Dog and all.  When I called Jane to see if they had room for 8 extra people at her Thanksgiving she made me feel so good.  She was excited!  Love that she didn't make me feel like a burden, at all.  (We actually got a text from someone late Tuesday night saying that they could join us for Thanksgiving dinner and we had to tell them we weren't able to host anymore.  Awkward).

Thursday morning we all worked together to help Jane get ready for her giant party.  We made cranberry orange relish and jello, turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes, gravy.  Maybe more, I can't remember.

It was so fun to work in the kitchen all together.

After the delicious feast things settled down a little bit.  Time for a snuggle.

The kids got royal treatment and were lucky enough to have whipped cream sprayed into their mouths twice!

Look at all the yummy pie!  Can you tell my kids were excited?

Jonas rocked out with Ethan's old violin (no he doesn't play now).

Bolton and Aunt Jeni rocked out too.  Love those photo bombing girls in the back.

Watching Frozen didn't do much to keep Uncle Doug awake after his turkey dinner.

Once most everyone had gone home, we played The Name Game with Jeni and the girls.  It was so fun!  Eliza and Levi both had a turn to win!!  It was pretty exciting.

We left Scott and Jane's around 6 and headed over to my parents for pie (again!).  We had so much fun playing the name game with the Woodys that we brought it to my parents and played it with them too!  This was actually Friday afternoon.  Eliza won at my parents as well.  This is her team as it got bigger and bigger.

We were planning on leaving Saturday, but we decided that we were ordering new cabinets from Ikea for the kitchen and they were having a sale that ended on Sunday, so we had to get it ordered before we left.  We went back to Scott and Jane's and Ethan worked on ordering the cabinets while the kids worked on raking the leaves.

Don't be fooled that it was about the work... it was all about the fun!

Ethan took a break from the phone to race the dog.  I think he won... but Murphy was right at his heels.

I love leaf jumping pictures!  They are so fun to take!

Levi moved his pile from one area to right in front of the swing set so he could launch himself into it.

Since we were there, we took the chance to help set up for Christmas!  Ethan got to perform his first lobotomy... on Santa no less.

Jonas and Bryant were great helpers for Grandma Jane.

They both thought it was pretty fun to see the ornaments with pictures on them.  Jonas especially loved this one of him as a baby.  He is convinced that Abe looks just like him.

Then he found one with his dad as a kid.

In true 2-year old fashion Abraham worked hard to make as much mess as possible while the rest of us worked.

Oh, good!  Bryant found an ornament with his dad's face too.  He even pulled the same expression for good measure.

Lucky us, we got to see Luke and Nora (and Eric and Sara) one more time!

It was 6 pm or so when we finally hit the road to California.  Ethan drove until midnight when I took over.  I had to switch with him at 3 am because the snow on the road at Donner Pass was freaking me out.  He had me take over about 30 minutes before we got home.  We made it home by 5:30 am!  We were blessed!  The kids slept great (much better than I expected) and we were alert enough to be safe.

We're so thankful for our wonderful families that give us so much love and support.  Thanks everyone for making our Thanksgiving such a treat!