Thanksgiving

i'm fi-na-lly getting to my thanksgiving post. it's been a big week......gabi has college applications due and it's musical performance week.......fun but, whoa! ok, let's get started on a thanksgiving recap. actually, before we even began our holiday there was a minor catastrophe on the property. the morning after a very loud and windy night we were packing up to leave for our family thanksgiving in utah and i glanced out of the kitchen window and noticed an empty space in the sky as well as branches on the ground where they weren't supposed to be. i went out to investigate. not good. sadly, one of our big, beloved and ancient twin pines had blown down in the night. the tree had died over the summer and we had made arrangements for a tree cutter but i guess the big tree couldn't wait. if you look closely, you can see it also did a job on our trampoline which we placed in the shade of this magnificent tree. its all just very sad and we will miss this grand, towering beauty. 

there was really nothing we could do about the situation that morning so we left things as they were and headed to utah.....

gabi, paul, roxy and i were very excited for this holiday as we were gathering together with sebastian (our first stop was visiting him at his job with big door), grandmas and a grandpa, six of the seven siblings in paul's family (gillian was arriving from portugal leaving only "big" margo absent and very sorely missed), and a myriad of cousins for a grand total of 35 meyers at the thanksgiving table lovingly hosted by tessa. beautiful. my mom and niece, lindsay were invited too.

we also spent time together hiking, cooking, black fridaying, playing, yoga-ing, visiting and meeting for family gatherings galore. we met up one evening with alex and her family in salt lake city to tour the lights on temple square. this lighting display is a sure bet for getting into the holiday mood. after thanksgiving eve dinner at her house, laura put together a fascinating family evening sharing the meyer scottish family history complete with pedigree charts, family letters, scottish ballads and a surprise visit from a bagpipe player. unforgettable. thank you everyone for a family-filled, dog-filled (9 in total), food-filled, magnificent nightly sunset-filled, thankfulness-empowered happy holiday.