And a Happy Thanksgiving To All!

Howdy everyone - Happy Thanksgiving.  

We enjoyed a yummy Thanksgiving feast at school with our parents on Wednesday.  It's always fun to have them come and eat lunch with us.  

After the feast, we headed out on an amazing Thanksgiving trip - we went to Moab and spent 3 days hiking, site-seeing, and relaxing.  What a beautiful place!

We spent most of our time in Arches National Park.  It's one of our most favorite parks!

We started out with a hike through Courthouse Wash - look at this beautiful scenery we walked in.  

The rock formations are so cool - we spent our entire trip deciding what the different formations looked like - sheep, elephants, dogs, pharaohs, gorillas, etc.

Here are the 3 Gossips over on the left - I wanted to call them the 3 Royals, but somebody already officially named them.

After Courthouse Wash, we headed over to the Windows section with a stop at Balanced Rock.

Isn't this beautiful?  If you look hard you can see some of the arches/windows we're about to hike to.

Here we are at North Arch - incredible.

We climbed up to right under the start of the arch.  That's us up there.

We did some "rock-lifting" - ok, not really, but we sure do look strong, don't we?

Here we are at South Window.  

And then we hiked around behind so you can see both North and South at the same time.  That's the nose right there in the middle - and all together you have . . . The Spectacles.  Get it!!!

From there it was a hike over to Turret Arch.

And check out this view - from Turret Arch with a view of both North and South Windows.

Next we hiked over to Double Arch - another one of our favorites.  Isn't it cool?

We climbed up way up high . . . .

. . . . And then went even higher.  That's us with dad up there under the arch.

Here I am under Double Arch.

And here's Sam.  

Finally we had our official Thanksgiving lunch - in the back of the truck in front of Double Arch.  Turkey sandwiches - - truly one of the best Thanksgivings we've ever had!!!

From there we headed to Sandstone Arch.  Look at these fins you have to hike through.

Oh, and it is true . . . boys love to climb rocks!

Here we are at Sandstone Arch.  Sam thinks it looks like two bears kissing.

And then there was more rock climbing.  

Ok - one final picture from Thanksgiving day - more rock climbing, it's true!

We started the next day with a nice, long hike (up hill both ways) to Delicate Arch.  

Here we are at the arch.  It is absolutely amazing!!!  

Dad hiked around and got some great photos of the arch.  See the raven flying around over on the right?

One more family picture under the arch - that is us down there in the middle.  

More photos - just to prove we were actually there.  Here I am.

And here's Sam.

The nice long hike back.  

Did we mention how great the weather was?  Perfect!!!

From there we went to Skyline Arch.

And then we found a picnic site up at Devil's Garden.  This was the most secluded, quiet, beautiful spot for lunch you could possibly imagine!

And of course, there was more climbing of rocks.  That's us with dad all the way up there.

And up there.

And up there.  The rock climbing possibilities are endless.

It was getting late so we decided to start with hiking in Devil's Garden on our next trip to Moab.

We got up the next day and headed in to Dead Horse Point State Park.  

And yes, there was more rock climbing.  There were pretty darn steep drop-offs though, so we didn't go too far.  

So our non-traditional Thanksgiving turned out to be amazing . . . and perhaps a new tradition has been born.  

Sam Alert:  Hey everyone - have I ever mentioned here on the blog how much I love to be outside? Maybe once or twice?  Well it's true - I'll do anything to be outside.  

So this trip was pretty much right up my alley.  And even though I have the shortest legs in the family, I hiked my little self right along with everyone else.

Enjoy a few pictures of me.  

Here I am in one of my famous poses - this cool tree was near one of our picnic spots.

And check out this amazing jump - and this was on our way back (almost all the way back to the truck) from our Delicate Arch hike.  I still had tons of energy.

Ok, so my legs were a tad bit tired here - a very small jumping picture.

Oh, and here's a pic of Mason - relaxing on the rock mountain on our Delicate Arch hike.

And check this out - we found this cute little arch just before you get to Delicate Arch.  We climbed up - - - and this was the view.  See Delicate Arch right there in the background?  Amazing!

And finally . . . . when we got home, we found that Zelf, our elf, has come for the season.  I love Zelf the elf!!!  I made some cookies today for him to take back to Santa - and I've already sent my Christmas list back to the North Pole with him.  

Ahh - what a great Thanksgiving . . . and now I'm moving on to a great Christmas!

Sam out - see you next week!

Pre-Thanksgiving Celebrating

We finally got around to some Pre-Thanksgiving celebrating this week.  

We actually started with one of our favorite things - watching Christmas movies.  This one happened to be a Micky Mouse Christmas, so our friends Donald and Pluto had to watch with us.

Then we went to "Eat Like a Pilgrim" night at Thanksgiving Point.  We've been wanting to do this for a long time and finally made the effort.  It was fantastic!  

It is a Thanksgiving re-enactment with pilgrims and Native Americans.  

We played pilgrim games - this one is Fox and Geese.

We checked out lots of displays like furs and a miniature replica of the Mayflower.

And then we ate like pilgrims.  We had stewed pumpkin, corn pudding, turkey, roasted pork, cobbler, and cider.

We got some "napkin education" - the pilgrims sure did use napkins much more liberally than we do.  

Their napkins were huge and you actually wear them . . . or in our case, the napkins wore us.

Then I got called up on the stage to do some "fowling".  I was the one who went up and down the corn stalks trying to flush out the turkeys.  See me over there on the left by the corn stalks.

I did some pilgrim dancing - very social!

Sam and I made corn husk dolls . . . . 

. . . . boy dolls, of course.

We checked out more displays.

And I spent some time chatting with Myles Standish.  He was the military advisor for the Plymouth Colony.  In real life, this actor is a 5th grade teacher and he begged me to come to his school for 5th grade.

We even got to try on some military stuff.

Poor Sam - the armor was almost as heavy as he is.

We also visited with some of the Native Americans.

We even got to see what it was like to be in the stocks.  This is how they punished people - public humiliation by locking them up in the stocks in the square.

 Finally, we decided to have an early Thanksgiving dinner tonight with our most favorite, required Thanksgiving food - turkey, dressing, and yams.  MMMM, MMMM, good!!!

Sam Alert:  Hey everyone - We spent some quality time outside this week too.  Ok, I guess it depends on your definition of the word "quality".  It is the end of fall - so of course that means yard work - and lots and lots of yard work. 

Here we are just finishing up before the rain/snow started.  We sure got a lot of work done in a very very short amount of time - that's what happens when we all work together.

And then - after the snow, we threw some snowballs around, mostly at mom.  

Alrighty - Sam out.  Have a great week!