Thanksgiving, 20th anniversaries, and Vegas

 We're 20!  Twenty years together.  We celebrated by seeing that space movie...what was it?  Interstellar or something.  And eating Mexican.

 

We were looking forward to a week in Vegas together--even though it was for a Domestic Violence training event.  We recently became owners of a small business called TBA, Think Before Acting.  We  facilitate/teach 2 classes a week for men and women who have been sentenced to take domestic violence/anger management counseling by the Elko Justice Court.  It's been a bit stressful at times, but we've enjoyed the class, and even more than the class the MONEY that comes from the class.  Sitting in a conference room at the Excalibur for a week at least was a way for us to get away together.  We ended up going to David Copperfield one night, and Blue Man Group (Brent's faves) another.  We ate the buffet at the Monte Carlo before the Blue Man show and had a great week together.  We had a great experience doing sealings at the Vegas temple one night also.  A fun week!

 Brent had to turn around and go back two days after we got home, for another training.  Look who he ran into!  I have to copy and paste the comments that were put on facebook when Brent added this photo to the Taylor Times family page:

Jon: I ran into Ross at Harmons. But i guess Vegas is cooler.

Shafer:  Brent + Ross + Vegas? Uh oh...

Lindsey Geertsen:  Yeah, why didn't you post your picture, Jon?

Cade:  Who is Kerry?

Ray:  Who was selling whom?

Sadie:  Kerry is in Ross's trunk. Ross was not about to miss this conference.

Sadie:  What happens in Vegas...

Jon:  Stays at Harmons.....

Sadie:  only if you get a picture, Jon.

Jon:  Challenge accepted.

Abby:   K am just reading through these comments. Fun-neee.

Brent sent us a picture of himself and Mason in their swanky Vegas hotel at Red Rock, but I thought it didn't compare to our cozy setup on Poplar Drive...

THANKSGIVING was great this year too.  We had a plan to go to Sandy to spend the holiday with Mark and Nancy and a few of their kids.  But as the date approached, and with so much going on with our domestic violence class and training and running the business and trying to get Christmas taken care of and wrapped and Romney home from Rexburg for only a few days, I decided it would be easier to stay in Elko.  Raegan and Romney were happy to do the same, and we ended up having a GREAT Thanksgiving feast and day together.

 We had quite the spread for just the 3 of us!  A frozen turkey that Romney scored for free in Rexy, plus green bean casserole, yams, home made rolls, real potatoes and gravy, and 3 pies.  It was a feast!  Just what we needed to do some Black Friday shopping that literally started at 6pm thanksgiving night and didn't end until midnight.  I was so glad I had these girls to help me-and we found some deals, I tell ya.

Can you believe that all this food was for the THREE of us?  We ate just about everything before the family even got home to Elko!

Brent and the rest of the clan had a great time in Sandy.  They ate at the Golden Corral (Goulding Corral to us) to save the cooking trouble of a huge feast, and you can see that the kids made sure they had enough cotton candy to last for the evening.

Lots of people had the same idea (not cooking themselves, I mean)

 Anyone like some turkey and potatoes with their cotton candy?

I'll just have some ice cream and gummy bears, thanks...

 Hartman really bonded with Hunter!  And I thought this was a cute picture of Sophie in the background...

The day after Thanksgiving is always the annual Turkey Bowl.  

The only black cloud hanging over the Utah festivities was Scarlett's tooth.  She had been saying her cheek hurt, so I called from Elko and made an appointment with our pediatric dentist who agreed to see her on Thanksgiving day.  He thought everything looked okay, and sent Scarlett and Brent home.  Brent and the kids drove home Saturday night after a fun-filled weekend, and Scarlett woke up Sunday morning like this:

Puffy and saying it hurt more than ever.  We called the dentist again (no one in Elko is on call on the weekends!) and he said he needed to see her again, and probably pull the tooth.  Brent and I were picking up a rental car the next morning to head to Vegas anyway, so we got it a day early and he and Raegan and Scarlett made the trip back to Utah to see Dr. Roth.  We had to get this fixed before being away from our little Scarly for a whole week.  Brent took this picture for me of her after the extraction:

Was she going to be well enough for us to leave her? I was worried.  We picked up the antibiotic and made lists on top of lists for the kids to take care of her and eachother, and left the next day.  I asked for daily pictures, and was relieved to see this by Tuesday:

I'm starting to think that we might be seeing six years of cereal and milk taking their toll on this little mouth...