Thanksgiving 2017

Bright and early Thanksgiving morning, we headed out to run

The Human Race.

This is a 5K/10K race sponsored by the Utah Food Bank. Registration is a donation to the food bank. 

It was sooo fun and I'm determined to make it an annual family tradition. Even Bryce made it across the 5K finish line.

Yay for the Browns!!!

Thanksgiving dinner was at moms. 

There was a little fiasco with the turkey. 

Fiasco #1:  Dallin was planning on deep-frying the turkey but it froze a little bit in the fridge and you can't put anything frozen in the oil or else...kaboom! 

So Sarah ran to the store and purchased a whole new bird which put us a little behind schedule (by an hour) but it all turned out great. 

In the meantime, the kids played Turkey Tag outside.

The object of the game is to pull the feathers (painted clothes pins) off the tails (shirts) of the other turkeys running around.

Fiasco #2: Setting up the family picture. I wanted to take the picture outside for better lighting, but the sun we set up the chairs in a place where the sun was shining from the side. And it just ended up being confusing to move chairs, move people, make everyone happy, too many helpers. So the picture turned out like this. Its ok. It will do. I'm no perfectionist when it comes to stuff like this. But it was stressful and I feel a little bad when I look at the picture. Oh well....moving on...

Syd zoomed in on one of the timer pictures that didn't turn out. I think its hilarious!!!

As for the turkey that was a little frozen and didn't get used - I took it home nad cooked it the next day. Two turkeys in two days. It was yummy. What a treat!

Fiasco #3: We are finally ready to eat, one hour later than we thought. We are looking around and notice that Geoff and Mike weren't there. So the question starts making the round-

"Did you tell Geoff the eating time?"
"No, did you tell Geoff?"
"I thought you were going to tell Geoff."
"Seriously, did no one tell Geoff and Mike when we were eating?"

And then Geoff and Mike were deluged with texts telling them to come come come! And we are sorry sorry sorry.

Geoff said, "Well, I knew you'd be eating sometime so I just thought I'd drop by at 2:00." Which is exactly when we ended up eating.

Random November

Spur of the moment, we decided to take the family to a Jazz basketball game. Nose bleed seats! Jazz beat the Chicago Bulls by over 20 points. Go Jazz!

Apparently this is how the girls watch basketball games.

Oh November. You slay me with your sunrises.

Also, the sunsets behind the house are very nice too.

And so is beautiful Sydney!

My Hike: Squaw Peak and Horse Tail Falls

Not to brag or anything but these two amazing ladies and I hiked Squaw Peak!!! It was hard. It was beautiful. And it took a day to recover. And it was AWESOME!

I've wanted to do this hike for a long time, but to be honest, it kind of scared me. I'd heard it was long, steep and challenging. But we did it! We stood on the Squaw Peak rock.

And had a lot of fun in the process. That's how we roll.

We also hiked to Horse-Tail Falls. Not on the same day though. :) 

I think its just as challenging as Squaw Peak. Its just not as long. 

And its gorgeous. The falls are amazing and a worthy reward for the hike!

Stake Music Festival

I love directing our ward choir. We have fantastically talented and dedicated choir members.

Every year, our stake puts on a Stake Music Festival. And every year we have so much fun preparing and singing. This year, we out-did ourselves.

I got a crazy idea to do a Moana song.

"We Know the Way."

And then I decided to add drums.

And then I decided to add dancers.

And then I decided to add a real-life Maui (Bro. Sika)

Camille was one of the dancers. Parker and Sydney were in the choir.

We kind of were amazing!

The video begins with our sacred song (Father, Be My Guide) and then our secular song (Moana) and then Moana again from a different angle)

Some of my favorite things from this experience:
* I loved including the youth both as dancers and singers.
* I loved hearing only the youth sing this solo section of the song:
"We are explorers reading every sign.
"We tell the stories of our elders in a never-ending chain."
* I loved including non-member, Rory, to help with the music. Seeing as how he is a fantastic, experienced, music-industry musician afterall.
* I loved including the drums and that this gave Jordan the perfect excuse to buy a gigantic drum he's always wanted.
* I loved that everyone was so willing to come to extra practices and go the extra mile. 
* I LOVE MY CHOIR!