Thanksgiving 2010

Thanksgiving was .... interesting. It is well known to be one of my most favorite holidays of the year, if not the most. It is a grand opportunity to soak up the cleansing effect that pure gratitude brings. Negativity is a very selfish thing and one of my pet peeves...Thanksgiving is a selfless Holiday... not centered around Easter bunny's, valentines or ghosts. It is reflective, introspective and just fantastic... I love it completely. We thoroughly enjoyed a month long exercise as a family of expressing and seeking out all the many wonderful things we are grateful for. There is an abundance and it feels like pure gold to diligently submerse your thoughts in deep gratitude.

Then came the actual Thanksgiving day weekend. It started off with a BANG.  An entire houseful of happy Hursts = 8 Adults, 9 kids (we were minus our 3 boys this year) and an extra guest dog. We successfully indulged in the feast of Thanksgiving (phew). Before our feast, my sweetheart paid a short little tribute to the things he was grateful for, it was so tender and completely adorable. I wanted to eat him up right there. We were all enjoying one anothers company until.... the day after Thanksgiving and everyone got sick. Very sick. It started with my nieces throwing up and by morning it was virtually the entire house afflicted with body aches, fever and mild upset tummy's/no appetite. That certainly put a damper on the weekend. Everyone sadly but thankfully left early because of the illnesses. I suppose that is the predominate rule of thumb, when the host is down, the house shuts down. I fevered and ached for about 3 days. It was awful and being pregnant the fabulous "Vitamin I" aka= Ibprophen was off limits :( It took me a few days to not only to physically but  emotionally recover from the weekend. I am sure the illnesses were just a fluke thing but I do have to say I think it will be a while before we have the whole gang down again.

With all that said...I choose to remember the pictures below and be so very grateful we were able to experience that. Being together with family is a great thing. It is so sweet to see Ben's parents when all their kids are together, they really love their kids and they love being together.

Thanksgiving table setting

Believe it or not... my 1st real official pie! and it worked.

The fantastic Thanksgiving Tree

Mother-in-law and Sister-in-law... aren't they pretty!

Ben and his sweet Father

Ben, Dad and Clay

Love Bugs!

A few of the sweet cousins.

Thanksgiving Tree

"Hold fast to the blessings which God has provided for you. Yours is not the task to gain them, they are here; yours is the part of cherishing them"

Elder J. Reuben Clark, formerly a First Counselor in the First Presidency, June 1969

This year we decided to do something a little different and never done before, at least by our family. I have been known to put our Christmas tree up the 1st of November but always so with a bit of remorse because we are cheating ourselves out of Thanksgiving, pilgrims, gourds etc.  Reluctantly, there always seems to be such an abrupt shift from jack-o-lanters and Halloween ghosts to... stockings and Santa's elves. Thanksgiving happens to be one of my favorite holidays of the year because it has such rich personal significance (if you let it)  and powerful opportunities for reflection.  There are few things that yield such joyous feelings, than unrestrained gratitude. I love to relic in Thanks giving as long as we can, no need to rush to Christmas, it will surely come!

As a compromise this year we did put our tree up the 1st of November but... this year it looks a little different. We decorated it as a thanksgiving tree. Until after Thanksgiving it is perfectly accessorized with fall berry's, twigs and floral but what makes it special, are the little scraps of paper that populate our tree. For family night a few weeks ago we discussed president Monsons talk "The Divine Gift of Gratitude" afterward we each all wrote down a few things that we were grateful for and placed those paper ornaments on the tree. Since that family night, I have found myself and the rest of the family on occasion gazing at the beautiful tree. I can not help but wonder if they can feel the same thankful joy I feel when I think of all there is to be thankful for. I am so very grateful for so many things, there are not enough scraps of paper or lead filled pencils around the entire world to write them all.

We love this tradition and it will be in our family a long while, that I know for sure!

Happy Family... Happily Giving Thanks!!

YEP! She LOVES her Daddy... she is so dang cute we could just pick her up and put her in our pocket FOREVER!


We had a wonderful Thanksgiving holiday. We went to Deer Hollow, my families ranch in Utah and it was wonderful! It is a long drive for us about 8 1/2 hours if you don't stop and 12 if you have 5 kids :) thank goodness weather was good and traffic on I70 was surprisingly mellow. It was a few fun days of great eating and good times. We made 4 turkeys, with nearly 50 people to feed, that did the trick! The kids had a blast with their cousins riding 4 wheelers, horse drawn wagon ride, hot tubing, den parties with Hot Chocolate and just being kids.

While we were there, my sweet brother Chris took some pictures of our family in the freezing cold. One of which we are going to be using for our Christmas card this year so I won't be sharing that one at this time.... but soon, very soon! Here is a small preview of the other ones he did for us. All in all it was a great holiday with SO much to be grateful for!!!!!!!


Horse drawn wagon ride the pilg's did.





"NO more kisses DAD.... look at that wolverine face... do you blame me?"


Thanks Chris for all these great pictures!