Music To Clean By: Thanksgiving

For most of our married life we have gone to Mom's home in Vernal for Thanksgiving. I have great memories of big Thanksgiving meals, sometimes with Dave and Melanie or Jerrie and Kathy, even Jim- but always with Willis and Denece, Jed and Anna, Mike and Dale and the nieces and nephews. I have such good memories of arriving at Mom's home late on Wednesday night to the delicious smell of pumpkin pies and rolls baking in the oven and the countertop covered with the makings for stuffing and potatoes and gravy. That scene and those scents will always mean Thanksgiving to me. The guys would always load up in trucks Thanksgiving morning and go for a long ride over to the Book Cliffs or somewhere else to look at monster bucks while the girls leisurely bonded over the dinner preparations. In the evening after the dinner was cleaned up and put away, Mom and I would go over to Dale's to help her frost and decorate hundreds of santa sugar cookies for her to sell at the Friday craft fair. Lots of years we went trekking up on the mountain to look for the perfect christmas tree. One year Willis told me about this perfect tree that he had been saving especially for me all summer. So he and I went and looked at it, and before I knew it, it was cut down and being dragged back to the truck. When we got it in the truck, it was about 15 feet tall and Randy was quite miffed at me for letting Willis talk me into such a huge tree. But who can resist Willis? Not me! One year we went up to decorate a tree at the cabin and it started to snow. It was so beautiful and peaceful and quiet up there. It looked and felt just like a "little house on the prairie" Christmas and we hated to leave, but we barely made it out before it dumped many feet of snow. Another tradition of Thanksgiving was for Amber and Aimee to put up Mother's tree. They were the only ones who could figure it out! Then we would decorate it. The kids always helped, but I supervised carefully and moved things until each ornament was perfect. Mother's tree was lovely with the ornaments that she had so carefully collected. I had been with her when she had purchased most of them, and if she found an ornament to add to her collection without me, she called me to tell me about it. Her ornaments were all in a shade of mauve called "dubonnet". I will always remember that color. The girls also put Mom's Christmas houses in her big front window on the shelf that Mike made especially for that purpose. What fun it was to have a house full of beautiful girls who were so excited and fun to be around. Things change as life moves forward. The girls grew up and moved away. Mom grew older, more frail and it became more difficult to get everyone together. The last Thanksgiving that Mom was home, she wanted me to come over so badly. We discussed dinner plans several times. My kids were going to their other parent's homes for Thanksgiving and I was at a time in my life when I did not feel very well and I was not up to the trip. Instead, I talked Randy into going to Salt Lake and eating the Thanksgiving buffet at Little America. We stayed Thanksgiving night at Park City and went Christmas shopping all the next day. I had a lot of fun and he humored me, even though he would have preferred to go to Vernal. As it turned out, it was the last opportunity to spend Thanksgiving in Vernal- until this year. With Shane and Alycia there, we got to go back. Nothing is the same as it used to be, but that's okay. As long as we are together we can always make new traditions and memories.

Making the rolls with Kennedy and Kasen.

Shaylyn's first attempt at homemade pie crust. It was a pumpkin pie and tasted great!

Alycia was in charge of the turkey. It was delicious and she was a fabulous hostess. The juice from the turkey made some really tasty gravy!

The three big boys are back together again. They had a good time playing together. They went for a ride to look at big bucks with their dads, Pa and uncle Wills.