Stice Family: Thanksgiving

The day before Thanksgiving, I got a call from an individual who introduced himself on the call saying, "This is the LDS missionaries calling for Sister Stice." It sounded strangely familiar... then Marty said, "This is Elder Foster speaking." I got so excited I wanted to cry! He went on to say that his mission President had given him permission for he and his new companion to eat Thanksgiving dinner with us. On the condition that we come pick them up and keep them only around 4 hours. He sounded so excited and grateful for the chance to do that, that there was no way I could let him (or I) down. But we had committed to Devan and Maura to drive to SLC to spend Thanksgiving with them and Levi and Rachele who would also be there. In fact, we were JUST ABOUT TO LEAVE to head there. I told Elder Foster I'd call him right back and called Devan, who thankfully answered right away (at work) and told him about it. He called Maura and we all agreed that my family would stay behind, eat an early dinner with Marty, then drive to SLC and have pie Thanksgiving night with Devan and lots of left overs over the weekend since they had already bought plenty of food to feed a Thanksgiving meal to us all.

The problem this presented was that I hadn't purchased Thanksgiving groceries and many things were already sold out at the store. Todd's mom had just added on to her house and invited tons of guests for Thanksgiving. So we were able to squeeze our family into the rations unnoticed :). We picked Elder Foster and Elder Farrer up at their apartment in Caldwell and brought them to our home in Fruitland to spend the first couple of hours. They played piano and guitar, a game of pool, and talked for a while. Then we headed to Todd's mom's house for a feast. I happened to have the things to make a jell-o salad to add to their feast so I wasn't completely unprepared.

Then we drove the Elders to their next apt. in Caldwell and drove the rest of our trip to SLC from there! Most of Thanksgiving was spent in a car eating gas station food. But it was worth it! Here is a picture with me and my brother, dropping him off at the end of our Thanksgiving time with him. Sure love and miss him!

For anyone that didn't know, missionaries voluntarily serve 2 years in wherever they are called to. During that two years, one of the rules they follow in order to stay focused and pure is to not date, flirt with, or have more contact than a hand shake with the opposite sex (unless it's a married couple on a mission together, obviously). Technically, being his sister, I could put my arm around my brother for a picture or give him a hug- which I did. Just not in the picture lest anyone not realizing the situation got the wrong impression about missionaries... (I shared the pic. on facebook.)

We had some pie at Devan's house and stayed up super late, then went to our hotel for the night. We all relaxed there most of the next day. At some point we went to the gym at Devan's office building and did a workout. That night we went to the theater to see the new Disney movie, Frozen. SOOooooo adorable.

On Saturday we shopped for items to put in a care package for Marty. That was my favorite part of the trip- being together as siblings and thinking of other siblings. We missed Scott and April too. We skyped with April, Mom and Dad a couple of times while we were there- once for the holiday and once to get ideas on things to put in Marty's care package.

I had printed off and laminated a Turkey version of Mr. Potato Head from Pinterest and cut out/attatched velcro to the pieces on the drive to SLC so the kids could play with it there. It was really cute.

Ashton was sleep deprived and tired that day. He ran a fever that didn't turn into anything, but he was much more mellow than normal and lounged around or played video games most of the time.

Another Pinterst craft I brought supplies for to make- hershey's kisses/nutter butter bite acorn treats. They were super yummy! Aunt Rachele is the bomb with kid crafts/activities. My kids love getting attention from their aunts and uncles, but Rachele is the queen of children's love and devotion. My kids probably dream about getting to visit her when they sleep at night :)

This is Ashton showing Uncle Levi his website that he uses to make dub step music on.

Leftovers!!! And music. They had Nicklecreek playing and everyone sang loudly to that. And at some point everyone became the Phantom of the Opera choir...

More video games.

Devan and Maura got a new DSLR camera this summer and he's learned tons on the subject of photography since then. And Levi has mad skills with his iphone and editing aps. The three of us had a good time playing with cameras and experimenting with lighting, etc. Todd comments all the time of how similar my siblings and I are. I LOVE that we are so much alike. It doesn't make me feel less unique to have siblings with all my quirks and hobbies, it means I have family. They're my people! I love to be around them and I love doing those hobbies with them and learning with them. Devan, for instance said he wants to get the wood working tools to start making picture frames because the ones at custom stores are so expensive and boring. I had JUST told Todd the same thing the week before when I took our family picture to JoAnn's to be framed and was disappointed there. Wish I lived closer to all of my siblings so we could get into those things together. Wood working, photography, fitness, music...

These next 5 were some of Levi's pictures-

the first from when he and Rachele took the kids to the park.

Levi is crazy creative. I love how he comes up with what he wants to take a picture of.

Off to shop for Marty.

At the new City Creek mall in downtown Salt Lake City.

These were 2 were Devan's awesome night pics from City Creek mall:

Walking the temple grounds on Temple Square. I hadn't ever seen the lights up close! Holy crowds- we didn't spend much time on picture-taking there because it was almost impossible to get pictures without a wall of strangers in the background. I guess they just turned the lights on the day before and with all the visitors for the holiday, it was their busiest weekend of the year.