Post Thanksgiving Fun

Our family had a great Thanksgiving this year.  I roasted the Turkey, made essential sides, and also had sister-in-laws who brought their so delicious dishes to devour up as well!!  We had a great time with Nate's two sisters and their families, exactly what you should do on Thanksgiving. 
After all the yum yummy food, our family went on a two night get away to the famous Wisconsin Dells!  We stayed at the Kalahari Resort mainly for their indoor water park that I was really impressed with!!  We had originally booked a "hut" room that was a 2 queen bed room, but as I checked in at the front desk they informed me that our family was selected to receive a complimentary room upgrade to their Royal King Suite!  All I could say was SWEET!!
The king suite was two rooms that connected in the middle.  One with a king bed and jacuzzi tub/bathroom, and the other one was two queen beds with a fireplace and their own bathroom as well!  We even had to use a special card to get into the hall way for our room.  Again SWEET!! 
Going after Thanksgiving there weren't very many people at the resort which was so nice.  We would go multiple times down the same slide without any wanting time.  Justin absolutely loved the tubing rides!  His repeated phrase was "I go again, again!!"
The wave pool, and lazy river were a lot of fun, but my boys had the most fun on the fast tub rides and the surf shop.

Hayden was unbelievable surfing!!  He was a natural.  You would think that he was almost going to wipe out, but then he would make a remarkable recovery and continued surfing!!  At one point he was even surfing BACKWARDS!!!!  and showing a little bum as you can see from his picture ;)


Nate did a great job at surfing as well.  They had a lifeguard at the bottom showing you different maneuvers to make.  One move was to grab your board, roll on your back and come back on top of your board after the roll.  I tried this and it was a no go, but Nate make it look easy.

Clay had the most fun on the slides and would go on anyone of them!!

It was definitely a trip our family wants to make a tradition out of!!

Thankful Tree

 We have so many things our family is grateful for that we started to write them down and place them on our Thankful Tree during the month of November.  Our tree started out pretty sad looking until we added our thankful tags and watched it grow!!
Every morning I would ask the boys what they were thankful for, then I would make our tags.  Here are some of their responses..... Thankful for Grandparents: Grandpa Ron, Grandma Mindy, Grandpa & Grandma Cottrell
 The weather, U.S.A, our House, School, Trees, Family, Animals, Cars, Phones to call family and friends, The Church, Mom and Dad, The whole World, Being Healthy, Lights, Scriptures, Work...Dad's job, Books, Good things to drink, Food, Warm Clothes, Friends, Toys, Treats, and Temples


We had fun making our thankful tree.  For Thanksgiving we were able to have Nate's two sisters and their families over for the Big Turkey dinner.  I roasted a turkey and made the potatoes and gravy and everyone else brought yummy sides like stuffing, green salad, rolls, corn, sparkling apple and grape juice, ice cream dessert, pie and other trimmings to feast on.  It was a great time with everyone.  We ate, flipped through Black Friday ads, ate some more and just chilled, exactly what you are supposed to do on a Thanksgiving Day!!