An optimist is a person who starts a new diet on Thanksgiving Day. ~Irv Kupcinet

As always my heart is full of things to be grateful for. The Lord has blessed me with may wonderful blessings. I am thankful for..

Nate, Natalie, Nichole,Tyler, and Ella. And all of my other family members. I am thankful for the friends that I have acquired throughout my life and how much they teach me. I am thankful for our new home in Alaska. I am thankful for Nate's job. I am thankful for eyes so that I can see my kids smiles and my ears so that I can hear their laughter. I am thankful for the Jesus Christ and the Atoning sacrifice that he did for each of us. I am thankful for so much more and have been blessed with things that are so personal from a loving Father in Heaven. And for that I thank Him.

This year for Thanksgiving we went to The Hansen's house. Since we had just arrived the day before they were kind enough to not have me cook anything (which is good because really I don't have many pans to cook with). We woke up to snow and lots of it. It snowed the entire day. We went over to help cook around 11 o'clock. We did a lot of visiting, a lot of laughing, and a lot of cooking. The kids seeing the snow were so excited to start to build a snow man although it wasn't quite snow man making snow they did give it a good try. Ella ended up crying when it just fell apart on her. I caught Tyler and Isaac trying to catch the snow on their tongues.I know you can't really tell what is going on in this picture. It's way too blurry. Dax, JoLynn's middle boy is being spun around in a circle playing airplane with Nate. Nate did it one time and from then on Dax was following him around saying "One more" and I think Nate did "One more" about 30 times.And Nichole got to hold Evan and cuddle with him. Natalie went to hold him and he started fussing so she went and gave him to Nichole and he calmed right down. All of JoLynn boys are such cute little guys. They were constantly making me laugh.Our Thanksgiving feast was so wonderful. It consisted of smoked turkey, 2 different kinds of artisan bread, green bean casserole, cranberry sauce, lemon jello, potatoes, sweet potato ravioli, yams with Carmel sauce, stuffing, and olives. JoLynn also made a wonderful slushy drink. For dessert there was baklava, pumpkin pie, and apple pie. It was wonderful.

Thank you so much Andrew and JoLynn for having us over to your house for an amazing dinner.

The next day we were invited to have Thanksgiving dinner over at my friend Mindy's house. Her husband had to work on Thanksgiving day so they had theirs the day after. So we went to Thanksgiving dinner round two. It was great to see Mindy again after so long. I wasn't able to take any pictures because my camera battery died. Which was very unfortunate. For that dinner we had Deep fried Turkey, stuffing, potatoes, yams, olives, rolls, stuffed mushrooms, water chestnuts wrapped in bacon, pretzel jello salad, and a green salad. After dinner we watched The 3rd Pirates of the Caribbean movie and then had dessert. There was fudge, apple pie, and a apple and snickers dessert. It was delicious. I think that I gained 50 pounds between the two meals.

Ella and Jocelynn played together like they haven't missed a day seeing each other which was really nice. I can't believe how big her kids have gotten. All of them are so adorable. And Coltyn is one of the happiest babies I have ever seen.

I am so blessed that I moved to Alaska and already knew several people there. I am even more blessed to have my friends open up their doors to my family for their Thanksgiving meals. Thank you Hansen and Ellison families. You are loved.