Monday, November 19

Whenever Jon tried to whisper something to Amy it tickled her ear. Jon started laughing so hard and all of us lost it. I love the closeness we feel with our kids!

This was such a neat week getting to see all of my family at Megan’s wedding and then spending time with my own family for Thanksgiving week!

Tuesday, November 20 -
Megan and Zak Gibbons Wedding

Wednesday, November 21

Thursday, November 22 - Happy Thanksgiving!

Friday, November 23

Saturday, November 24

Sunday, November 25

All on his own Tyler put together and painted a turkey for the school library. All submissions were welcomed and displayed. I love his gumption!

My niece Megan got married in the Portland Temple in Oregon. (Zak didn’t want to get married in Utah so they chose his home temple.) The timing and location were tricky for us -- 2 days before Thanksgiving. My kids were still in school on Tuesday, but out Wednesday so I decided to fly up to Portland Tuesday morning and fly back that night. It worked out really well!

Brian decided to get on the same flights as me. I had such a great time talking with him the entire flight there. It was also so nice for me to have a traveling buddy! I hadn’t ever rented a car on my own and it was helpful to have Brian’s help and support! He also navigated for me since Siri was struggling.

I love finding my kids reading their scriptures! The ladies in the house are working to keep up with President Nelson’s challenge to read the entire Book of Mormon before the end of the year. We are going to make it!

Kevin and Whitney hosted Thanksgiving again and it was marvelous! I brought rolls, jam, honey, mashed potatoes, a pie, whipped cream and ice cream.

On our Lund family shared album Barney posted this picture of Alice (left): “Alice said it is, ‘Dress Like Your Cousin Day’ and that she chose Amy.” We were dying at how cute and accurate she was! So Amy dressed like Alice (right) and posted a picture. She was so cute how much she copied - from the hairdo, clothes and flip flops plus the same pose in the same location.

playing “rag doll” in the back of the back of the truck on the way to Springdell

Mark has been cracking us up with his “fat bum” routine in his shark blanket - stuffing blankets in the bottom. It looks so funny in person!

Amy was at it again -- making Mark’s violin practice time exciting. She his pumpkins all over the room and he got to find one after completing each part of practice.

With gaining another hour we had plenty of time to drive to Julie’s house. I had such a great time there! Julie made some delicious eggs (and I was hungry!) and Sam made a yummy green smoothie. Sharon and Kevin flew in the night before and stayed with Julie.

My parents were staying in a hotel nearby. (Grandma and Grandpa Fish needed to rest so they stayed at the hotel.) Alan and Katherine also stayed at a hotel. Visiting with my family at Julie’s was one of my most favorite parts of the day!

Sharon and Kevin hopped in the rental car with Brian and me. I knew Grandma Fish would be there early and I wanted to get a chance to visit with her, which I did in the temple foyer.

The sealing was absolutely beautiful and special. My grandpa sealed Zak and Megan for time and for all eternity. He was the sealer for Nancy and Monte’s wedding 22 years ago! This was the first time that my parents, grandparents and all of my siblings were in the sealing room together. Next time we should have a group hug or something.

It was absolutely freezing outside and we waited a long time for the bride and groom to emerge! We huddled together for warmth and did alright when the wind wasn’t blowing. It was the only day that week that wasn’t raining, so we were grateful to be dry at least!

It is crazy that Megan is married! She was born while I was on my mission. Everyone is growing up too fast!

When we couldn’t stand the cold any longer and it seemed that our picture obligations were fulfilled we headed to a buffet and got to visit for a few more hours indoors. Looking over at all six of my siblings I had one of those moments of “Wow. These are all my siblings” and felt that connection from growing up together.

We drove to the reception center next. Brian and I only had a few minutes before leaving for our flight, but we had to meet up with my former young women president from San Pedro, California.

It was so fun to see Diane Bangerter (“Di Bangs”) and her husband Bruce. I didn’t really get to visit much and had to run in and hug goodbye to Grandma and Grandpa Fish.

And here we all are from youngest to oldest! I wish we could’ve taken a nice one of all of us at the temple, but at least we got this one! It was so fun to be together!

The drive to the airport was extra crazy for me with lots of traffic and windy roads with crazy directions and signs, but Brian was an awesome wingman! We got to the airport in the perfect amount of time to return the rental car, get to our gate and for me to change out of my dress and heels for the flight! On the way there I thought it was overkill to bring my down vest, but even with that, my sweatshirt, jacket and warm boots I froze on the flight home! I was super tired when we arrived at midnight and was extra grateful that Jon had dropped me off in the morning and picked me up that night. I love my man!

What an awesome wedding day!

Jon took Amy and the boys to our ward turkey bowl in the morning. Most of our gang played soccer, which they said was super fun.

Some of the guys took over the soccer field to play Ultimate Frisbee, which our family also played.

They had a great time... and no broken fingers this year!

Bop-It! has been played a lot lately. The kids were excited to watch the master at work!

Cute Mark sporting Amy’s sweatshirt. I love it!

Jon doesn’t wrestle the girls very often, but it’s always very entertaining!

Sharon flew from the wedding to Utah with Kevin so she could be with her 3 BYU kids plus her Danneman nephew.

The younger kids at the counter: Andrew, Mark, .Tyler, Jillian and Lucy

Everything was delicious!

We have cool teenagers who willingly help with cleanup!

You can’t have a Heap gathering without a good game of Nurtz!

We brought our new favorite game: Code Names Duet.

The kids played a new game with their cousins: Machi Koro which they really liked.

After the Dannemans left Kevin, Whitney, Jon and I chatted in another room while the kids played Charrades. I love how much fun our kids have together! Our teenage kids need this fun time with cousins. I’m so grateful that we live close enough for our kids to bond like this!

This was a fun bunch!

In the afternoon we had Ryan and Barb’s family over for games and leftovers. They brought their foreign exchange law student from Denmark too: Anne Louise! It was super fun to talk with her especially about what life is like for her and what observations she has made of America and Americans, etc. She was amazed by our big families, which we pointed out were more due to our religion than our nationality. Her English was very impressive!

Our kids have a great time together.

To complete Anne Louise’s experience in America we arranged with Ryan and Barb to shoot pumpkins the next afternoon. The kids rode around the neighborhood on motorbikes before we left asking neighbors if they wanted us to take away their pumpkins for them. That worked out well and we easily found plenty of pumpkins to shoot! The kids set them up in the meadow at Springdell.

Everyone who wanted to got to shoot plenty of pumpkins. Jon also packed hot chocolate and hot water in the cooler to help people stay warm.

The targets were plentiful!

I shot too. I took pictures of Anne Louise on her phone so don’t have my own, but she loved shooting. She was surprised by how powerful the guns were and also by how thrilling it was to shoot them.

Andrew holding the shell that hit him in the face while shooting

Tyler made more than one snowman. He put the first on the chopping block with the pumpkin targets and everyone got a kick out of Jon shooting off each layer.

Lillie, James and Tyler had so much fun creating snowmen together!

When we arrived back home Nancy and Brittany were already there having driven back from their vacation in Park City after the wedding. Monte joined after dropping off Brooke at her dorm. Ryan and Barb had to come say hi and we ended up playing Just Dance and talking for quite a while. It was a great time!

For Monte’s birthday he got tickets to the BYU-Utah game in Salt Lake. Nancy stayed here and Monte took the rest of his family. We watched it on TV later. Ryan joined us. BYU was (surprisingly) ahead for most of the game, but Utah came back in the second half for the win.

I trained Andrew how to research family names. We found a relative together who needs his ordinances done so Andrew reserved and printed the card to take to the temple next week.

Jon and I joined the girls’ game of Code Names and played a few more rounds. We had so much fun together.

Beautiful Portland Temple

Brittany, Monte, Megan, Zak, Nancy and Brooke

Heap side! (It was tricky for Grandma to get up the steps to this photo spot. I had to be careful not to step forward into the water!