Thanksgiving in Elko

This year's Thanksgiving holiday found us road-tripping to Elko to spend a few days with Chuck's parents and extended family.

We drove down on Chuck's birthday (this seems to be a recurring theme in our family; we made this drive on Clyde's last birthday and Will's two years ago). We celebrated with pancakes and presents before we left Nampa, and then with a delicious chocolate cake (made by the birthday boy's mom) once we arrived!

This was the cute babies of '08 reunion on the stairs right when we got to Grandma and Grandpa's.

Thursday morning was devoted to male bonding: Chuck and his dad first changed our van battery and then rewarded themselves with some cannonball shooting (as photographed by Chuck, thanks honey!).

 A friend of Dave's was headed out to do some target shooting with his little pirate cannon and my boys were delighted to tag along :). Chuck and Clyde got to light it once, although Clyde's main job was to retrieve the cannonballs after each launch.

The boys came safely home and then it was time to head over for the actual holiday gathering!

 Which for Courtney, Mallory, and myself meant prepping for another lip sync, this time to One Direction's 'One Thing'. We hunkered down in Mal's room and got to work mapping out choreography.

 Our rehearsal space got invaded by the rest of the kiddos, so we recruited them and decided to stage a talent show after dinner. George and Clyde decided to do some sort of (really really adorable) freestyle/breakdance number, whereas the babies of '08 chose to sing a primary song together.

 Here they are practicing 'The Wise Man and the Foolish Man' - sooo cute! They didn't end up performing (Bri's family left early to hit some sales and Will was having a rough time by that point) but maybe we'll get them 'on stage' next time...

 

Some more shots pre- and post- dinner (too busy eating delicious food to take any shots during dinner - thanks again for feeding us Dave, Terri, Melissa, Kevin, Lee and Aleesha!). One of the highlights was the fun we had washing dishes afterwards - our crew was Chuck (washing), Jana (rinsing), Courtney (drying), and Mallory (putting away). We sang along to the radio and cheered everytime we hit a milestone in the process ("Woo, we're on little plates now!" "All right, that's it for the silverware - awesome work everyone!" and so on...). 

Chuck had to bow out a little early (Jack was having a pretty hard time) but the girls and I finished up by grabbing the wet dishrags and tackling the kitchen floor. I'm pretty sure it was at this point that Mallory channeled Mary Poppins and said something to the effect of "Wow, I was dreading helping with the dishes but this turned out really fun!"

We finally got our acts together (literally, haha) and the talent show began; here are screenshots of George and Clyde dancing. They were so hilarious and cute!

Annnd then it was our turn. For some reason our grueling hours in rehearsal did not translate to any kind of smoothness in the actual performance, leading to LOTS of giggles and a few declarations of "Turn it off, let's just start over!" But instead we decided the lip sync must go on and we finished strong...ish :). Video might be put up someday.

After the talent show it was (at least for us and our boys!) time for bed. We took Courtney back to Grandma and Grandpa's house with us so that she and I could head out first thing in the morning for a 'special day'. When the girls used to live in Boise I took each of them out for fun 'dates' every now and then, something I haven't been able to do for a while. Courtney made a special request for one this visit and I was more than happy to oblige.

Our first stop was Starbucks for peppermint hot chocolate. Soooo good. Jack accompanied us on this leg of the adventure, although he fell asleep a few minutes later and was dropped off to Chuck! This let Court and I turn the music up a little bit louder - our CD of choice was Tay Swift's 'Fearless' and we happily sang along, getting a decent majority of the words right :).

After our hot chocolate boost, we went shopppping! To our great disappointment only one thrift store was open, but we found Court a cute Christmas t-shirt there so that worked. We also hit up some other stores and tried on sunglasses and admired our matching-ish boots and searched for something special to spoil Courtney with - and we found it: perfume at Rue 21. I sure love having such cute nieces (two on my side, five on Chuck's) to help me get in my girly fix!

 

That afternoon we sent a group out paintballing and the rest of us relaxed with Grandma.

 

Here are some of the camo-sporting gang. Clyde was so excited to go out and watch the action; he can't wait until he's a little bit older and ready to play (under Chuck's careful eye of course!!).

That night we headed over with Grandma and Grandpa to Lee and Aleesha's house for some awesome homemade burgers and even better company!

The Elko Izatts are just as obsessed with Star Wars as us Nampa Izatts are, so Star Wars Monopoly seemed the only logical choice for an after-dinner activity (piling on the couch to watch a Christmas show was the pre-dinner entertainment). And I had Chuck take a picture of Aleesha and me just for fun, love her!

We hadn't been over to Lee and Aleesha's since right after they moved in, so it was fun to walk around and see all of the awesome improvements they've made. Jack's favorite was the wood flooring - perfect for crawling and pushing chairs around! And stairs are always fun, but especially when they help you reach an iPad.

 

I settled in and looked through all of Aleesha's photo albums (pretty much my favorite pastime at anyone's house) and Eli wandered over to play peek-a-boo with me for a little bit, cute boy.

We realized that we had all of the family members with the last name 'Izatt' at this gathering - eight born into it, three married in. Here are the five littlest Izatts!

The next morning it was time to pack up and leave.

The boys piled onto Grandma and Grandpa for one last picture.

And I snapped this quick one of Chuck with his mom and dad as we climbed into the van. I'm thankful for Dave and Terri - they love each of their children/children-in-law/grandchildren SO much. And we love them too!

And this is how the boys spent a decent portion of the drive home (when they weren't reading). Evidence of a VERY fun and busy trip!