Miller Thanksgiving in Arizona

This Thanksgiving was a little different and really awesome!  My mom's Foree side had a reunion down in Mesa, Arizona on the Saturday after Thanksgiving and my parents arranged to make it a little vacation for our whole family to spend some time together!

We rented a mini-van and headed out Tuesday night!  The sunset on the way down to Kanab was ridiculously beautiful...of course my phone pic does it no justice.  Also, we fell in love with our mini- van and might..just might...be converted.  We thought we would never want a van, but wow!  The room and convenience is amazing!  So we'll see haha we may be dorky mini-van owners in the future.

 We made it to Kanab to spend the night with lots of tears shed and one puke clean-up....but thankfully, the entire rest of all the driving, the girls were rockstars!

Wednesday morning we caravanned with the family the rest of the way to Gilbert, AZ.   We stopped at the Walmart in Page, AZ and Jade was thrilled with the little arcade place and said, "This is the best vacation ever!"  LOL glad we drove her all the way to the Page Walmart for a vacation.

We finally made it to the amazing house my parents rented for all of us and got all settled in that night!  We went out to eat at Firehouse Subs and Lainey pounded a whole grilled cheese sandwich and Jade had only a bite or two of her sandwich...haha typical

 The next day was Thanksgiving and of course Lainey was up bright and early with the sun!  It seemed that almost every morning throughout the week it was Lainey and I, and my dad awake first.  My dad was always a good sport to read to Lainey who demands books all day long, especially in the quiet mornings.  Such a cute grandpa.

 We got all ready for our annual family pictures!

 Poor Jade had a sad looking cold sore on her lower lip and chin all week:(

 We got a few good ones and lots of funny outtakes!
This is about as good as the Grandparent/grandkids ones got...

The wonderful Patriarch and Matriarch of the family!

Then we had our amazing Thanksgiving Dinner!  Catered by Mimi's Cafe.  It was awesome with all the fixings!

Gregg and I handled the de-boning of the turkeys!  Elbow deep in giblets!

Then we went swimming!! You heard that right!  Swimming on Thanksgiving day!  I think Utah had snow that day haha.  The outside temp was only mid-60's but the pool was heated to 92 degrees!  It was like bath water...sooo nice!  Thank you again to my parents for paying to have it heated.  It was really so much fun!

 Thanksgiving night we had our Family Christmas party!   We got to celebrate Thanksgiving and Christmas all in one day!
Gammy and Gampy gave all the grandkids christmas jammies!

And we did our sibling/cousin gift exchange!

 And after all the kids were in bed we played games!  Including the money game!  Where unfortunately Tom and I came out the only empty-handed losers haha!

 
Friday was such a fun-packed family day!
That morning we went to Freestone Park and played on the playground and also rode their carnival-like rides

 My phone randomly reversed the colors of this picture to make it that much more awesome haha!

 Lainey was freaking out over all the ducks we saw!  She just kept shouting, "DUCK! DUCK! DUCK!"  It was so fun seeing her realize that she is seeing the real thing, instead of just a picture of one in a book.

 I love this picture of the oldest cousins!

 We all got to ride around the whole park on this legit little train!

"Duck! Duck!"

 

The dad's and Gampy with the kids...
It was such a fun morning at the cutest park!  Thanks Mom and Dad!

We went home mid-day for naps and some more swimming!

Then that afternoon my mom reserved us a spot at Bounce U!  It was a fun bounce house and the kids and adults had a great time!

 Then that night we went to dinner at "5 'n Diner"  and Tom and my mom got the biggest burgers of their lives!

After dinner we had one last stop at my cousin Domini's house!  It was so great to see her and Porter and their darling girls and house!  Taylor and his wife Natalie were also there with their new baby!

Here is a picture of the 2nd cousins! 

Saturday was the big Foree Reunion!  It was a lot of fun and so great to see my Foree cousins that I haven't seen for about 8+ years.  All of my Mom's siblings were there except Uncle Jack.  It was awesome to catch up with everyone and even though Family Reunions are typically awkward...this one wasn't at all.  It was truly fun to chat with everyone!

 The Foree siblings!  Renita, Dorothy, Dan, Mark, Tom, LuAnne

 I was cracking up at these pictures that were displayed!  This is how I remember most of my cousins... I'm the attention seeker in the blue and white striped shirt.

My grandma Luella Foree (who passed away in 1997) is right next to my mom:)

 The house we stayed at was literally right around the corner from the beautiful new Gilbert Temple!

 After the reunion, we had one last round of swimming and hung out with my Aunt Renita, Uncle Dave, my cousin Amber and her son Walker at the house.  Then we packed up to head out EARLY the next morning!

 THANK YOU SO MUCH MOM AND DAD!  For such an awesome get-away vacation!  We truly value and soaked up all the family time together.  Thanks for helping us out and making arrangements for us to all travel comfortably and to make so many memories together.  We ate way too much and had a blast!  We love you!

Sunday morning we woke up at 4:00 am!! (And Lainey randomly decided to party all night and was wide awake at 1am, 2am, and 3 am!  What!?  How inconvenient Lainey girl...)  We needed to be out the door at 5am for our 7 hour drive to get to Enterprise for Stratton's baby blessing by 12:45pm.  Thankfully the girls transported well and slept in the car until about 7:30am.  And they were exhausted angels the rest of the way and napped too.  Needless to say, we were downing energy drinks and I may or may not have drifted off to sleep while Tom was driving and he may or may not have contemplated peeing in a Pringles can to avoid stopping and waking us all up.... anyways we got there and had a great day with the Stylers!

 I didn't take many pictures but... the blessing Trevor gave Stratton was beautiful and it was a fun day at Trevor and Lashel's new house in Enterprise.  Kevin, Michelle, Darren & Dani (and we also got to meet their new little girl Swayzie for the first time!) , and Sadie & Brock were there.  And also the Terry clan whom we love!

 We spent the night at their house and made the most out of the short time we spent with them! I absolutely soaked up the time I had to cuddle cute little Stratton baby.  Thank you Trev and Lashel for being amazing hosts to us on such a busy weekend!!

We made the final stretch home Monday morning and were so happy to be home!  (And sad to say goodbye to the van!)

 We got our house all Christmas-ed up!

 Back to the routine... Jade basically had a 1 on 1 Tumbling class last week... everyone out of town

There was a nice day when we went to the park.... and this is Jade hiding from me during hide and seek...

My girls fresh and clean out of the tub enjoying some milk and a show

Jade begged to bring the wiggle car in and Lainey demanded to be on as well, but wouldn't hold onto Jade so after me following them around for several laps catching Lainey... we had a brilliant idea to strap them together!!  Safety first??

And this was tonight.  That cute dad pushing the girls in the "car"!  I love my people.