Thanksgiving

I love my family!  We had such an awesome Thanksgiving week.  I needed every minute of it.  

We headed out early Friday and stopped in Rexburg to pick up Zach.  It's been 6 years since I've been in Rexburg!  We ate lunch at a new subway in the parking lot of what used to be carousel court, the awesome (not) place I lived for 2 years.  It has changed a ton!  It was scary seeing Zach and Josh's apartments.  And they said they just cleaned them!  I told the kids not to touch anything :-) Braydan and I were trying to do the math and figure out how many guys have lived in one apartment. Pretty gross.

Way off subject here . . . Zach made the rest of the trip fly by and we got home late Friday night. 

 First thing, Mom handed Braydan an early Christmas gift: a hunting license   Braydan brought his gun, but he didn't know he'd get to go real hunting!  He was pretty excited.  He and Zach went most mornings and evenings and got lots of pheasants.

But . . . one morning before anyone was awake, Braydan went by himself and came home with this:  

 Poor little bambi!  I can't hardly stand to look at this picture, but Braydan was excited he shot his first buck.

The most exciting part of the trip, however, was Josh buying 60 cows.  Kaleb took this picture at the auction.

 It kept all the guys busy, hauling cows home Mon. and Tues.  Wednesday night, one of the cows got out. She's a wild, wild cow!  Zach got on the 4-wheeler, Mom on a horse, Braydan on a motorcycle, Josh and Dad in the truck.  It was starting to get dark and snow, freezing wind.  The more they tried to round her up, the more she ran through more fences and fields!  They finally gave up when it got too dark to even see!  Never a dull moment on the farm :-)

My pictures are all out of order, but here is Braydan pre-accident. Isn't he handsome? Well . . he was . .

(just kiddn!)  

 Grandma came over for dinner every day and she said her job was to "hold the baby."  Sometimes we couldn't even get her to eat because she just wanted to hold baby.  Grandma is so cute, even with her memory lapses and stubbornness ;)

 Eliza loved riding horses with Grandma.

 Jane got spoiled by everyone, especially uncle Zach.  We had her sleep in our room the first night and it was horrible.  I was awake every time she sucked her thumb or moved, so I moved her in Zach's room and problem solved :)  Thanks Zach!

 I loved hearing/watching Josh and Zach on the guitar.  They are really good!

 Eliza loved Zach.  I caught him several times upstairs playing barbies or little people with her.  He built stick houses with Kaleb and army guys.

 So Thanksgiving day started off great.  Josh wanted to vaccinate, tag, and worm the cows so the guys started early.  I even went out and helped fill shots for a while in between helping mom with cooking.

 They were almost done when Alisha ran in and said Braydan is hurt.  I ran out and he was propped up against the barn with blood all over his gloves, face, pants.  He kept asking what happened and couldn't remember anything.  It was so scary!  The boys said a cow kicked a gate and the gate flew right into Braydan's face.  Josh hurdled over fences trying to reach him before he got trampled, but he knew he wouldn't make it in time so he screamed at Braydan to get out of there.  Braydan doesn't remember crawling out, but he escaped unscathed!  Well . . . kind of.

Josh and David carried him in the house and David started washing him up.  I'm so glad he was there because he was so calm!  I, on the other hand, was a big wuss.  After staring at so much blood, I almost passed out and had to go lay down.  I kept saying, he needs to go the hospital, but Braydan would shake his head no.  Finally, after we got a clearer look at his mouth, David saw the cut went all the way through!  

 He had to get 3 stitches outside and 3 inside his mouth.  You'd think Thanksgiving dinner would be shot  after that, but he still ate!  Kind of.  It took him a long time and he only made it through one plate, but he did it :-)

I loved eating/being all together as a family Thanksgiving night.  I feel like that what's heaven will be like: us being all together, laughing with(at) eachother, playing games, telling stories . . .

 Friday was Alisha's birthday!  Josh's hands in the back are an inside joke :-)  Check out the calluses though!

 We shopped black friday, made her favorite dinner and dessert, played games, and danced.  yes Danced!  Zach is an instructor now at school!  I couldn't believe it and i had to see his moves so we had lots of dancing nights.

Zach got replaced when David came :-)

Thank you family for an awesome time on the farm!  We loved it and we love you!  Thank you mom especially for cooking and cleaning and making everything wonderful :-)  You're my hero!