Thanksgiving+ the Everglades

Kayli REALLY didn't want to go to the Everglades but her kids REALLY wanted to see some gators. So while her and I cooked up some Thanksgiving goodness, Sterling took the kids to Shark Valley--win/win!

I thought the tram tours were free, but apparently not. Sterling said those kids ended up hiking a good four miles. Go kids!

K Ruthie right here is just giving me heart eyes all over the place.

A gator!

Sterling said this one snapped at them. I kind of wish I had been there. When we went all of them just laid there taking naps.

After all that excitement (and some kitchen HARD WORK on our end!) we headed over to our friends the Hadley's for Thanksgiving. Almost all the same people were there as last year, which made it seem traditional and wonderful and I had a really great time.

This boy fell in a puddle at the very beginning so went sans shorts the entire day and then ended up having an accident in the last hour and wore one of the girls' shirts. Sheesh.

We had some great kickball fun with a workout ball. I was impressed with all the little kids and how well they played!

Some of the adults chatting. 

Kayli looking beautiful.

Sister Hadley and her twin girls' pulling out all the pies. I made a gluten-free lemon meringue and pumpkin so that Sterling would have something to enjoy. They both tasted really good so I was quite proud of my gluten-free skills.

Far left: Summer and Clint (our bishop) are some of our really great friends. Middle: Ben and Beth who we love so much and then they moved up to West Palm Beach but luckily for us, came back for the Thanksgiving party! Right: Tricia and Kyle who are pretty much my lifeline always and forever and I am so thankful they live here! She likes to get up early and get out of the house too, so we have park dates at like 8am when no one else would be awake. We can't handle the 11am heat. HAHA!

Molly roamed all afternoon getting wetter and dirtier every time I saw her. But she certainly seemed happy!

We got home pretty late that evening but stayed up playing games. We played games a few nights with Jethro and Hazel and Kayli and it was so much fun! Some Phase 10, Rummikub, and Scrabble Slam were the favorites. It definitely felt MUCH more like a holiday to stay up late playing games with the family! It really felt like such a great holiday! It was SOOO much more cooking than I realized ahead of time. Kayli helped me make(she made) stuffing from scratch. So we made the bread the day before and had navajo tacos for dinner and then had bread for the stuffing. Then I made the gluten-free pies, sweet potatoes, 7-layer salad (tip to Sterling's family), and a ham. Luckily, everyone LOVED the ham and it was the easiest thing I made, haha! Gotta love crockpots and brown-sugar glazed pre-sliced hams from Aldi's! But besides the cooking, it was so much fun to look around and see people chatting, kids playing, a few games going on in different nooks, Kayli and I even played the traditional Sleigh Ride duet that screams tradition! (the twins, who I teach piano to, are practicing it for our recital next week, so I had told them Kayli and I would play it for them when she came so they could hear it.) Lovely, lovely day.