Turkey Day Recap

We’re back from Salt Lake! It went by way too fast, of course. We spent the days shopping, eating good food, and playing Uno and Trivial Pursuit. Let’s just jump right in.


The whole thing starts with a hurt foot. Two days before we left, Penny sprained her toe. Okay, so I sprained Penny’s toe, but it was an accident. Her toenail got stuck to the blanket I was using, and when I moved positions, it wrecked it. Poor thing. Before we knew what exactly was wrong with her, I did a little internet research to see what we should do for her and came across this exchange on Yahoo Answers.

QUESTION:
I think my dog has a sprained leg, what should I do?
We took her out to the park today and she was running around like crazy, when we left I noticed her right leg was shaking, and now she's limping when she walks. She won't bend her ankle (is that what they are on dogs?) and so I think it might be sprained. Should I take her to the vet now or wait until tomorrow to see if it gets better? Should I...I dunno, put an ice pack on it or something? I need some advice here.

ANSWER: dang woman.. well my dog got runned over last year and we didnt take him to the vet cos hes vicious.. so we just kept him here and within a week he was better.(his leg was f$#@ed up too) so its up to you if you want to take her.. if its just a sprained ankle then i dont think its such a big deal.. but you are extremely concerned about her then i say you take her to the vet


This person single-handedly convinced me to take Penny to the vet. So when we dropped her off at our bishop’s house Tuesday evening, we left also left them some doggie pain-killer/anti-inflammatory and strict instructions to keep her calm and off her foot as much as possible. Poor little thing. Anyway, no time to worry about her too much, because then it was OFF TO PHOENIX to spend the night before our 6:30 flight the next morning. We only got to visit with my cousins and aunt and uncle for about two hours since we had to wake up so early, but it was still fun to catch up.


On Wednesday, just a few hours after we landed, my mom, Annie, Jon and I met up with Darcy and Kelsey (Jon’s brother and sister), Lianna and Jake (their spouses), and Pearl and Norah (their baby girls). We’ve never met Pearl before so it was so much fun seeing her for the first time. And seeing everyone else again, of course. We had them meet us at Robintino’s – kind of a weird old place, but good food. My grandparents have been eating there at least four times a week ever since before they were born. We had a fun lunch catching up and taking pictures of babies.

^ (Pearl) ^

^ (Norah) ^

They grow up so fast. I always feel ninety when I say that. But it's true. One minute they're born, and the next thing you know, they're teething on lemons.

Apparently she loves them. This went on for two full minutes. Kels, I'm sorry but the red-eye removal didn't work on this picture. I tried. Really hard.

Thursday was THANKSGIVING (duh), the second best holiday of the year. I put in a good word for some crab drink and was not disappointed.

The chunks you see are crab (imitation crab, maybe?) and grapefruit. The liquid is some mixture involving Clamato juice. Don’t think about it, just eat it. Cold. DELICIOUS.

Here’s the turkey coming out of the oven…





And being carved. See the guy on the left? That’s my cousin, Brandon. Does he not look just like this guy on a billboard plastered all over Paris?


That's my mom's hand, whisking the gravy. It was delicious, for the record, as were the mashed potatoes. At least Kyle thought so.





He actually made them, and the apple pies, too. But he couldn't have done it without my excellent apple-slicing skills.





Jon was hunting while all this silly food preparation stuff was going on. He and the General squeezed a couple of trips out to the marsh to properly murder some ducks (pitiful quacking noise) :-(


No trip to SLC would be complete without a visit to Epic, our favorite restaurant. As a good rule of thumb, I’m a happier person when I’ve got lots of hummus and mascarpone in my stomach. It was amazing, as usual, but unfortunately Klutt was not our waiter this time around. KLUTT!! Someone named their kid KLUTT!!!!!

I can only hope that I'll look half as good when I'm a great-grandmother.

Holy longest post ever. And I’ve still got more. We took some really good pictures of the girls and the couples (well, everyone but me and Jon, more on than in a later post), and some REALLY hot pictures of me and Corinne. Corinne and me. Whatever.

Kyle pointed out that Corinne looks like a Fraggle in this picture.

Is that all? No. Our flight was scheduled to leave at ten on Sunday night, which would get us home around 2:30am (keep in mind that once we flew into Phoenix, we still had to drive two and a half hours to Tucson). Well when we got to the airport at 8:30, we discovered that our flight had been delayed until ONE O’CLOCK IN THE MORNING. This is why you call before you leave, kids. Ridiculous. This was me after we found out and were trying to figure out what to do.





So we called my mom and she turned around and got us. Thank goodness we had that option, otherwise we would have been stuck in the airport for FIVE HOURS before our plane took off. Ew. Instead, we went back to my grandma’s house for a couple of hours and slept. I managed to sleep in the terminal, too, once we got through security (it was a hassle, but not because there was a long line. It was the exact opposite. There was NO line, and everything was roped off. Nowhere to even form a line if we wanted to. We stood there, lost and confused for a few minutes, until we literally had to rouse a guard in order to get screened). I also got a few minute’s sleep on the plane once we finally left (not at one, as it turns out, but at one-thirty. Of course.) And I slept all the way home in the car. We pulled into our parking spot at 5:20, went inside and slept for forty minutes until the alarm went off at six, then jumped (jamp?) into the shower to get ready for work. Since I managed to get some sleep, I’m not too bad off. I can’t speak for Jon, though. Bless his heart for getting us home safe and sound.


This entire saga ends with a hurt foot. In the morning when I stumbled into the living room, I smashed my foot into the plastic paneling on Jon’s hockey bag. To say I “stubbed my toe” would be like saying Annie’s winking face is “sort of funny”.





Severe understatement. I RUINED my entire foot on it. Two of my toes now are completely swollen. I’m limping around like an idiot. If this had happened twelve years ago, I would have demanded that my mother wrap my entire leg in an ace bandage.


Anyway, that’s our trip, in a nutshell. If you read this whole thing instead of just skipping through to pictures, you have my respect.


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Explanation: Annie and I are the only two people on earth that can’t wink both eyes. I can at least wink one, and with years of practice Annie believed she had mastered her right eye. Not so.


Further reading: When Jon came in to see what all the commotion was after I destroyed my toes, he stubbed HIS foot on his hockey bag, too. But not as badly. At least, he hasn’t complained about it as much as I have.


PS- Do NOT go see Australia. SAVE YOURSELVES. I only hope I’m not too late.......

PSS- I can't for the life of me figure out how to salvage the second half of this post. It's acting like a link, but it's not a link.... thoughts?