Tanner and Emilie put up their Christmas Tree

Emilie loves decorating for Christmas.  She put up her Christmas tree even though they are coming to Spokane this year.  (Not sure why Tanner is in all these pictures with his arms folded.  I'm not sure he was super happy about putting up the tree so maybe that's why.)

 

Thanksgiving 2023

We had pies on Wednesday night before Thanksgiving.  Apparently pies are much better when you aren't so full with Thanksgiving dinner.  Plus then we get to have pies twice.  Ryan, Angela, Kathleen, and Cody came up for Thanksgiving.  They are having Thanksgiving dinner with the Plumbs, but they had pie night with the Spears.  GG came for pie night too.  We had lots of varieties of pies: chocolate, key lime, cherry, lemon meringue, pumpkin, pecan, oreo.  I feel like there were more kinds, but I can't remember.  

My attempt to make a turkey shaped veggie tray.  The example was much cuter of course.  We had 17 people for dinner at Grammy and Pompa's house.  Grammy, Pompa, Marsha, Me, Garret, Jon, Michelle, Nixon, Sadie, Ike, Scarlett, Cam, Rachelle, Ollie, Maddy, Ender, Finn.  Kirt was sick and didn't get to come. Garret was nice and took him a plate after we finished eating.  Ryan and his family came over later in the evening after having dinner with the Plumbs.  Garret and I went home around 6 because Emilie and her family (Dave, Jen, Josh, Grandma and Grandpa Leavitt)  came over.  They flew in to Spokane about 3pm on Thanksgiving.  They went to Black Angus for dinner and then came to our house to visit.  Tanner flew in on the same flight and went right to Pullman.  We are so excited to watch him play basketball tomorrow.  We also got to talk to Katie for a little bit tonight.  

Here is the list that everyone is thankful for:

Ender-family

Scarlett-autumn time and turkeys

Ollie-cats

Maddie-food and water

Ike-all of us being here

Sadie-opportunities we have in life

Nixon-modern medicine

Garret-my parents and everything they do for me

Cameron-modern plumbing

Rachelle-comfy fires to snuggle in front of

Michelle-transportation

Jon-that we are not in a war

Emily-turquoise water and FaceTime

Kirt-comfy house all by myself (he was sick and didn’t come to dinner)

Grammy-missionaries and the good example Tanner, Kathleen, Brandon and Katie have been

Pompa-that my kids are raising their kids in the gospel

Marsha-savior and Michelle’s roll

Playing the ESP game (or ESPN game as my mom kept calling it).  One person would go out of the room and we would pick one of the 9 papers on the ground to be "it".  Then the other person would come in and try and "read the persons mind" and figure out which paper was "it".  They would point to a paper and say "is it this one" and the person would "read their mind" and say no or yes.  The secret was, the location of where the person touched the 1st paper, would give away which piece of paper was "it".  If they touched the paper in the top right hand corner, then the "it" paper was the piece that was in the top right hand corner.  The kids loved the game. 

We also played the broom game.  If you can't do this, then you're dumb, dumb, dumb.  The secret was you had to clear your throat before you did it. We played this at the cabin in Bear Lake in 2017.  I couldn't remember what the secret was of course.

Writing Christmas cards to send to Katie

Tanner and Emilie in the airport.  They flew up on the same plane to Spokane.  It's the first Thanksgiving that they have ever spent together.  Emilie flew home the Thanksgiving they were dating and Tanner was in North Dakota (once with Idaho and once with Utah Tech) the last 2 Thanksgivings.

 

BVI Sailing Trip Day 12

This morning we checked out of our AirBNB and went and had brunch.  We did a little souvenir shopping in St. Thomas and then went to the airport. They told us we had to be to the airport 3 hours early so we had a long wait for our flight.  

We were all on the same flight from St. Thomas to JFK.  We said goodbye to Don and Liz who fly from JFK to Las Vegas.  Mark, Tori, Kirt, and I flew to Seattle and then to Spokane.  Luckily we didn't miss any of our connections.  We had short layovers, but both of our flights got in early, so we made our connections and made it home without any problems.  Kirt and I got to ride in first class from JFK to Seattle and it was so nice.  I was able to sleep most of the way there. 

Don and Liz saw Tanner in the Las Vegas airport.  He was on his way home from his games in Ohio.

 

BVI Sailing Trip Day 11

Today was our last day on the boat.  We got up and did some snorkeling, swimming, and paddle boarding for the last time.  Then we sailed back to Tortola and turned our boat in.  We got a taxi to the ferry station and took the ferry back to St. Thomas.  We rented an AirBNB on St. Thomas for the night because we couldn't make it back in time to get a flight home.  We went to dinner at a really good Mexican place and then walked around Tortola a bit.  

Liz and I paddle boarding

Liz and I swimming

Mark and Tori snokeling

Some pictures of the boat. The back patio and eating area.

The galley and kitchen

Galley and kitchen from the other direction

The dingy

The pier on Tortola after dinner

 

BVI Sailing Trip Day 10

 We got up and jumped off our boat and went snorkeling in Diamond Key bay.  Then we took the dingy in and went on a short hike to the Bubbly.  The ocean water comes up over the rocks in such a way that it bubbles.  It makes it feel like you are in a huge pool of seltzer water that is fizzy and bubbly.  It was really cool.

We found a Jost Van Dyke sign on the hike to the Bubbly.  Of course we had to stop and take a picture.

On our way to the Bubbly.  We are "soon there".

The Bubbly

When we got back to the boat from the Bubbly, we took the dingy a different direction to a small island called Sandy Spit.  When we got to the island, we were the only people on the island. 

Awesome picture of the Sandy Spit from the drone.

Then we sailed a short way to another bay on Jost Van Dyke called White Bay.  We moored there for the night.  We took the dingy in and sat on the beach and got fancy drinks.