Our Early Thanksgiving with Nikki

Last weekend I spent all of Friday cleaning the house. I vacuumed every hard floor AND mopped. We hadn't done mopping in quite a while, so it was time. I finally got my motivation to do it because Nikki decided to come visit us early since she is starting a second job with Amazon (different location than the first time she worked there) this week and won't be able to come for Thanksgiving. Her other job is at Michael's craft store, and she works the day before and after Thanksgiving. I also finally decided that our towels and extra sheets could share the shelves that the games are on so that I could get them out of the baskets and off the floor of the laundry room. The sheets and pillowcases still smelled from being packed for so long that I decided to wash all of them before putting them on the shelves.

That's where the towels and sheets were before.

Saturday morning Jack had his jazz band festival at Chiawana High School in Pasco, where they performed the same songs they did the previous week, and he did his solo again. In the afternoon we took the cats to get yearly vaccinations at Petco. By the time we were heading back home, Nikki had beat us there. She worked that morning and then drove over afterwards. She brought her friend/roommate Cyrus again. After about 2 hours of visiting, they decided they needed a nap. Nikki told me to wake her up in a little while if I wanted to hang out. I was pretty tired too and sat on the couch for a bit to watch the BSU football game with the boys, but finally made myself get up and make frog eye salad and an apple pie that we were having the next day for our early Thanksgiving dinner. When I finished those, I went to see if Nikki wanted to hang out and she was still too tired. So, I went and did dishes and watched the BYU football game (with Curtis and Garrett). I went in one more time, but she still didn't want to get up, so I just let her sleep.  We didn't see either of them until after we got back from church the next morning. I'm glad Jack decided to go to the youth dance since Nikki wasn't even around to hang out. BSU won their game but sadly BYU lost their first game of the season. I was cheering for both teams but when it comes down to it, I am always a BSU fan first and very glad they won.

Jazz festival performance.

Jack out in front for his solo.

Sunday morning our family got up and went to church like usual while Nikki and Cyrus kept on sleeping. They finally woke up while we were gone. When we got back, she was ready to help where needed on food prep, so I told her to make the deviled eggs (since that's one food item she had suggested for our meal). I made rolls and Curtis cooked up mashed potatoes and smoked chicken. Yes, we decided to cook chicken instead of turkey for this meal. It was the first time Curtis tried smoking a whole chicken and we did two of them. It was delicious! We love using our smoker. I would also add that he did soak the chickens overnight in a brine as well. The brine had apple cider in it.

Making the eggs.

The eggs are ready!

Green salad, Frog Eye Salad, deviled eggs and apple pie. We also bought a pumpkin pie from Costco but left that in the fridge while we ate dinner.

Mashed potatoes, stuffing, rolls and smoked chicken. I also bought sparkling cider for drinks.

I finally remembered to use my tripod to get a picture of all of us.

She was the only one ready for dessert right after dinner. Ice cream and pie.

Costco pumpkin and homemade apple pie.

After we all stuffed ourselves, we sat down to watch the movie "Wonka" since Nikki hadn't seen it yet and I've been wanting to show it to her ever since we bought it. She had heard things about the movie that made her question if she would like it, but she thought it was good also. Nikki had a hard time just sitting still to watch the movie, so she got up after a little bit and started wheeling around on her Heely shoes (shoes with wheels). After the movie was over halfway finished, I remembered that she was going to help me make 3D snowflakes. I volunteered to make some for our upcoming ward Christmas party. They are really easy to make and fun. She was still very fidgety even while making the snowflake, but we were able to get one whole one made. By then the movie was over and we were ready to play a board game with her and Cyrus called Settlers of Catan. It was a 4-player game so the only ones that played were Nikki, Cyrus, Curtis and me. The other kids did their own things. Our game lasted a couple of hours and Cyrus won. When we finished, it was time for them to head home. Originally, they were going to stay until Monday morning and drive back before classes start but changed their minds since they had homework to work on. It turned out it was good they went back when they did because they drove through about an hour of snow, which was the beginning of a winter storm on the Cascade mountains over on the West side of the state.

Cuddling with Coco during the movie.

This was the first snowflake I made the Sunday before. I didn't get a picture of the one we made together, but this is what they look like. I enjoyed making them.

All of our kids.

Our family

Our family and Cyrus

It was a short visit, but we're very glad that Nikki and Cyrus were able to make the trip over and that we could celebrate an early Thanksgiving with them. With two jobs now, it's not likely we'll see her for Christmas either. I guess we'll see.