Thanksgiving and beyond

Have you ever had a vacation so long that it took you at least a week to recover after coming home?  Well I just did!  The Wednesday before Thanksgiving we headed to Idaho to spend the holiday with my family.  Kade and I have been married for more than 11 years and he has never had Thanksgiving with my family.  My Mom is a fantastic cook and she did not disappoint, the food was fantastic.

And the company wasn't bad either.

After we left my parents house we headed to Park City for the week.  And while Park City was our home base for the week, we did manage to go a lot of places while we were there.

We started with the zoo.

This woman just happened to be walking by with a Peregrine Falcon.  McKinna had a smile on her face but really couldn't wait to put a little distance between her and that bird.

There were also some really cute new additions to the zoo.
When we walked up to the first elephant McKinna said "Mom that is a boy elephant."  When I asked her how she knew that she told me that she "could see his stuff", then after a brief pause she turned to me and said "or does his stuff fall off in the winter?"  And as far as I know, only squirrels hide their nuts for the winter!

I think that this guy may have been sending me a message and I don't think that it was very nice!

Here are some rhinos and some whinos.

Other inmates.

I really do think this guy wanted to eat us!

My kids are allergic to cats of all kinds.

My monkeys are getting big.

Another of the many activities was ping pong.  Liam became quickly obsessed and would recruit anyone that he could.  Luckily my Dad has always been quite a ping pong player himself so Liam was in heaven.

They had a real competition going and I didn't find out until the day my parents left that Liam and my Dad were also racing down the long halls to get to the ping pong area.  I think that Liam probably thought that he would have a better chance at beating "Poppie" at a foot race than at ping pong.

We rode the Gondola up and down the Mountain from our hotel and I am not sure how my kids can be smiling at this point because it was soooo cold I was miserable!

We went and saw the Christmas lights at Temple Square.

They were fantastic as usual.

( I must admit that credit for this picture goes to Kade but I loved it so much that I had to add it to my post.  Thanks Kade!)

Well these are just a few of the things that we did while on our trip.  I, of course managed to squeeze in some shopping.  But the best part was that we got to spend time with family and friends that we love and miss.  And there are a few that we are still missing and hope to see next time!

We cut the trip a day short because we were trying to beat some bad weather that was coming.  We drove through a storm for the first few hours but then thought that we were home free.  Well, we were wrong,  we were a half hour from home when the traffic came to a complete stop!  We sat there without moving for more than two hours.  The kids watched an entire movie and when it was over Liam looked out the window and said "Are we still here?!"  Oh to be a kid and get so engrossed in something that you are oblivious to what is going on around you!  (I guess maybe you don't have to be a kid,  their Dad does the same thing!)