Thanksgiving Review

Thanksgiving this year . . . was infinitely better for my health! Yes, for my health. If you will recall, last year I stayed in my jammies until 5 o'clock in the evening watching a marathon run of 24 episodes that my brother-in-law rented. And that is when I got hooked on 24. I watched the rest of the seasons in the same marathon fashion nearly every night and got caught up without missing too many episodes of the season that was playing at the time. Anyway . . . this year my roommate, Jen, came with me to my sister's house and in an effort to make things interesting for her and to improve my holiday's activities - I suggested we go mountain biking up Green Canyon. And she obliged! It was probably 20-25 degrees outside when we went!

I borrowed my sister's super-fancy mountain bike. Hers is full-suspension and mine is no-suspension. I bought my bike when I was 15 or something crazy like that. Front suspension was out at the time, but it was too expensive for my taste. Anyway, my sister's bike also has clips - not the kind where you have to have the special shoes but the kind like the cage things that you stick your toes in. I got pretty good getting into them on our way into the canyon so I stayed in both of them when we started up the single-track. At one point we were going up hill and it was a little narrow with lots of trees around and lots of rocks. I was going so super slow . . . then I hit a rock in the trail and it brought me to a dead stop at which point I could not get out of the clips fast enough because I forgot I was in them. Well I fell over side-ways . . . into a pile of rocks. That is the second pile of rocks that I have met intimately this year without too much damage. (The other pile of rocks was in Mystery Canyon in Zions.) Ooooo my knee was stiff for several days. I think I have full movement back now - 1.5 weeks later. Although it is still tender to kneel on it. (I think I bruised my knee cap when I fell into the pile of rocks - don't ask me how I did it, I have no idea.)

The ride, overall, was pretty fun despite the fall, the cold, and the skiff of snow on the trail and road. :o)

Then of course there was Thanksgiving dinner. The best part about Thanksgiving? Well, I would have to say the food, but I think the true best thing about Thanksgiving is that people make a point to gather with their loved ones. They make the effort, they sacrifice the time, other responsibilities, their desires - all to be with family and share time with family, make memories, and best of all: develop lasting relationships with family. There should be more opportunities like that - and especially government sponsored ones. :o) But the church provides that for us - with Family Home Evenings (FHE). I really look forward to having real Family Home Evenings with my own family someday. The pseudo-family FHEs are decent enough for right now - it helps to get the habit formed so that every Monday night is blocked for that activity. But I really look forward to my very own FHEs where I have to struggle to come up with a new and exciting activity that will bring my children and my spouse and I closer together. I just hope I don't have to struggle too hard to come up with those activities - in fact, I am currently trying to prevent that by slowly gathering ideas and putting them in my FHE box. Someday that box will be used . . . to its fullest. That will be an excellent day and I hope I remember that I thought it would be an excellent day when the day finally comes. :o)

We also came up with an idea to make a family holiday cookbook to share all of the famous recipes we use for the holidays. And there is one recipe that started it all rolling and one that Jen dubbed "Karol's Kursing Yams". Crack up! A couple of years ago my mom was warming up the sauce for the yams in the microwave but the sauce kind of exploded like a volcano! And when she realized it and opened the door to the microwave and the sauce was spilling out all over the place . . . she swore! It was such a laugh - hence the "Karol's Kursing Yams."

And then we ended the holiday with making some gingerbread houses! So fun. I haven't done that since I was a kid - and neither had Jen. The gingerbread house is completely edible, my sister made the gingerbread from scratch and baked it for us. And then the tradition is that you bust it up on New Year's Day and eat it! And we did a little shopping on Saturday too. It was a nice Thanksgiving!!