{Thanksgiving Part IV - Sunday - heading home}

Sunday morning we packed up, said goodbye to the Matthew and Judy crew, went to church for a bit, and then headed over to G&G's house to bid our farewells there.

And we had to grab this awesome "Joyce" photo - Caitlan Joyce and Miriam Joyce with the amazing Grandma Joyce. 

We love these guys. I miss living close to them.

Then we loaded into the car and drove. And drove. And drove. And drove. And stopped for food. And drove and drove and drove and drove and drove and stopped for gas and drove and drove and prayed while driving through the snow and drove and drove and drove some more all the way back to our house. Yup - we did it in one day with 2 babies.  That's 11 hours of solid driving, not including the stops. It was rough, but so glad we did it instead of staying somewhere that night and trying to drive Sean into the city early Monday morning to get to work like we had originally planned. 

Our girls are such troopers!

It was such a fun trip! We got to spend time with so many people that we love and to celebrate family. I'm so blessed to have married into a family that I love as much as mine!

{Thanksgiving Part III - Saturday Fun}

Saturday morning was nice and chill. Just hanging out with the cousins.

 For lunch Timm and Megan and their 3 kids (Sean's cousin's family) came to visit! Evette loved having little cousins closer to her age to play with!

And a birthday celebration for Uncle Matthew!

Naptime was a must. So much visiting and we had to get fueled up for our big evening!

 That night we headed up with Mom and Dad McQuay, Caitlan, Megan and her bf, Rachel and Cami up to Temple Square to see the lights! The girls were mesmerized!

It was stunning, as usual. 

The trees are so meticulously lit! Just beautiful.

Saw the lights, listened to some music, grabbed dinner afterwards..... it was a great evening and the girls were so well behaved for it being so late.
After the lights we came home and we all played some fun games with Julianne and Nathan late into the night. So fun!

{Thanksgiving Part II - Friday Fun}

Friday morning we went over to G&G Binns house for breakfast and to play with them and the McQuays who were staying at their house.

Then we went for a walk to play at the park! It was pretty windy and cold for us folks from CA and TX (nevermind Rachel who has been living in the Tundra, AKA Idaho, for the last few months...)

 

After hanging out with the Grandparents we headed back to Matthew and Judy's so Evette could help decorate their tree a bit, and so we could grab a quick lunch before hitting the road again.

Naptime in the car. Good work, ladies.

Our first stop was to pick of the lovely Cami and then head into the mountains to find some snow so we could build a snowman!

  

The only snow we could find was sundance ski resort. The snow was icy but it was snow and Evette loved it.

Here is a picture of us ladies until I ruined it with my concerned face over Evette slipping on the ice. Oops. Cami and Rachel look amazing.

 Do over.

Snowbaby!!!

Evette was in heaven, as she is FROZEN obsessed, and Miriam was so curious and slightly concerned about the whole ordeal.

And of course we had a snowball fight. But since the snow was hard it was more like an iceball fight - kinda scary, but extremely fun!

Look at that massive chunk of ice that Sean is going to throw at me! Evette loved having a snowball fight! She was throwing those suckers left and right, and even threw one at little Miriam's head. We then had to have a little chat about Miriam being a bit too small for snowball fights.

Rachel threw a hunk of ice at the same time Sean did.

It was an intense snowball fight, even blood was involved at one point and someone *coughRACHELcough* even got knocked off the

snowmobile they were modeling on!

And eating snow of course.

 Evette thought it was like ice cream.

Miriam wanted to try some too since Evette loved it so much. She was not as much of a fan. 

"Here Mir-rum! It's like ice cream!"

Cute baby.

My sister is gorgeous and my baby is sweet and worn out from running all over the place.

Our next stop was to go visit BYU campus. It was crazy to go back there. That's when Sean and I became "us". That's where we dated, got engaged, got married, lived .... We were there for 4 years! 4 out of our about 6.5 years together. That's a long time. So many memories.

Pretty much every building was shut down because of Thanksgiving except for the Wilk and the Library.

 I may or may not have cried a little bit. Oh college. Oh beginning of our life. Look how far we've come!

We grabbed some dinner and then headed to our last stop of the night, to Tom and noelle's house (my aunt and uncle) for a little family get together for my side of the family. It was so fun to see those guys! All of my aunts and uncles in the area and a lot of my cousins were there. Unfortunately, my grandparents couldn't make it and we were bummed about that. 

The only picture from that night is of these two crazy girls. Evette decided she was done with her braids for the day and they were both up way past their bedtime with a lot of sugar in their systems. They had fun playing with their cousins and seeing the family. 

Big shout out to Tom & Noelle for always opening up their home for get togethers - they're the best.