Sunday November 30, 2015
Dear Cassidy -

Hello! How are you? How was your week? Are you freezing? Your email last week was great as usual. Your Christmas Markt looks like it will be great! Is it all set up now? You had quite the family history week. Did you work more on that this week?

Here's the rundown for our week here...

Monday was pretty normal. Because we were going out of town for Thanksgiving I had a few errands to run. We had FHE and afterwards Dad and I had to talk to Hadlie about not saying hurtful things to her siblings (River).

Tuesday after kickboxing I was mostly here finishing laundry and packing.

Wednesday we left for Vegas. We wanted to leave fairly early in hopes to miss some holiday traffic as well as a little storm that was supposed to happen. So we were out of here by 8 am. We dropped Brownie off at Ricky & Natalie's and were on our way. Colten worked on homework, River listened to Taylor Swift the whole way, and Hadlie watched Elf and was very excited to get to Vegas. We got there with not a problem. There were definitely a lot of people travelling but it wasn't too bad. As soon as we got there River & Ellie insisted on a trip to Target. We took them as well as Hadlie and Brynley and dropped them off. We came to pick them up an hour or so later and Riv & Ellie had a whole cart full of things they wanted to purchase. We sifted through that, got a couple of things and were done. Wednesday was Jen's (and Penny's) birthday. Jen & Dave, me & Dad, Tanner & Colten, Hadlie & Brynley went to dinner. It was a little Italian place and the waitress was terrible and the food wasn't that great.

Thursday (Thanksgiving) morning Dad and I went on a walk in the chilly outside. It was not very warm down there this trip. We had a good walk, came back and got everyone ready and headed over to Ty & Kacee's. We brought all of our cooking assignments but had to do the cooking there. Jen and Dave were preparing a bunch of things to take to Jon & Susan's for their Thanksgiving and then they have Dave's whole family over for another Thanksgiving at their house. Because our family is so big (29 of us without you) we opted to eat by ourselves at Ty & Kacee's. It worked out well and our dinner was great. We then went over to Jon & Susan's for pie/dessert. It was fun to see Grandma Stewart and lots of the other relatives. News from the day was that Megan is pregnant, and Hailey is dating someone!

After dessert we headed back to Ty & Kacee's and did our traditional Bingo game with Papa and then the cousins opened Christmas presents from each other as we won't all be together for Christmas. That was loud and very fun.

Friday we did something really fun. We took our 3 kids, Brynley, Ellie, (Tanner went to Alamo) Sydney (Jared & Melanie's daughter), Marlee & Bryton (Maycee had a soccer tournament), to the Vegas temple to do baptisms. It was a really great experience and something fun for those older kids to do. Afterwards we went to Komex for lunch and you can probably guess how that was:) Then we stopped by the mall for Mrs. Fields cookies, forgetting that it was totally Black Friday! That place was a mess! Later that night all the adults from my family, plus Colten went to dinner at the Cheesecake Factory. Nobody was thrilled about babysitting but they did fine.

We drove home yesterday. Nothing too much to report about that except we have to stop multiple places for lunch because we CANNOT have people all be happy at one place. Spoiled.

About 2 hours before we got home I started having a tickle in my throat and coughing. I'm totally sick with something now. Can't stop coughing! Glad it didn't happen at the beginning of the trip.

Well - that's it for the week. We're going to try to get out our Christmas decorations today and put together at least the tree. We'll send you pictures:)

I love you very much Cass! We missed having you with us this week for Thanksgiving but I'm thankful for what you're doing there. Have a great week!

Love - Mom