thanksgiving

lucy, me, laura

since we couldn't make it back to idaho or utah for thanksgiving this year, i decided to rope my cousins into doing thanksgiving with us. my cousin, lucy, came up from portland with her family for a couple days and we went over to my cousin, laura's, house for thanksgiving dinner. laura lives about thirty-five minutes away (when you don't get lost and end up in an r.v. park, that is), so it wasn't very far at all and made me wonder why it's taken us this long to get together with them. 

we went over a couple hours before our early afternoon dinner and had a great time just hanging out and catching up. laura's daughter, gretchen took my girls under her wing and i hardly heard a peep out of them the whole time we were there. jonathan was a little less cooperative and refused to sleep the entire time we were there. he actually was the reason that we ended up leaving in the end.

don't let the cuteness fool you, this boy was tired.

tired eyes showing through.

close to sleeping on daddy's lap, but still fighting it.

lucy's husband, brian, was great with the kids and also helped entertain them this weekend. it's always nice to have other people sharing the burden of entertaining my children.

randy and laura's husband, loren

thanksgiving dinner itself was delicious. laura and lucy's families are actually both vegan, and since i can't eat dairy right now, it was the perfect year for us to do a vegan meal all together. we divvied up dishes to bring and i was able to eat everything there, which was really nice for me. plus, it really was all very delicious.

it was so fun to get together with cousins and helped to ease some of the homesickness of being away from family for the first time in a long time.

(thanks for the pictures, lucy)