Saturday, November 29, 2008

a heart of thanksgiving

My Thanksgiving company left early this morning. And the house is deafeningly quiet. I'm sitting here reflecting on the events of the past 5 days. And I am so full of joy and thanksgiving, knowing that memories were made and very well documented I might add. Like to the tune of over 800 pics taken between the four of us with cameras! Yes, I'd say we captured every memorable moment. This pic being one of my favorite images from the week... Emolyn and her beautiful Mommy Nicole! Oh my gosh, look at their brilliant smiles... and Emolyn's ruffle tights... and her darling dimples! Yes, she completely captivates me.


My sister Kathy, her daughter Kristen and husband Joe and their daughters Kennady (6) and Mya (2) pulled in Monday night from Oklahoma City. What a blessing to share Thanksgiving this year with my side of the family! A first in my home, since moving here over 30 years ago! Our days were filled with movies, shopping, picture taking, fort building, hiking, park playing, singing "Tarzan" songs, scrapping memories with the girls, making meals, loving the rain, guys shooting hoops, singing Disney princess songs, IKEA runs, passing Emolyn around, playing with Koda & Wiley, picking lemons, baking and listening to Christmas music once the Thanksgiving meal was over!


Grammy & Pop Pop are sooo thankful for our miracle grandbaby, sweet Emolyn Kate.


Randy, Tyler, Joe and Shawn shooting hoops and playing horse.
Oh ya, the night before Thanksgiving I go out to the garage and there is water everywhere... from our hot water heater! So my Handy Handsome Husband is off to Home Depot to buy an 80 gallon water heater. He not only installs it that night but replaces the tub faucet that broke earlier that day. He was one busy boy. And yes, it's true, bad luck comes in threes... our VCR broke that day too.


My sister Kathy and I taking a photo op while hiking South Mountain with the family.
We live less than 2 miles from South Mountain Park. Did you know that South Mountain is the largest city park in the nation? We're talking 17,000 acres with 51 miles of hiking/ biking trails! I am so thankful we live mere minutes from quiet, tranquil hiking trails... even though we are planted in the middle of the 5th largest city in the nation!


What a cutie! Oh, and so is Miss Emolyn.


Little Mya fell in love with our Koda. And she kept calling Randy "Brandi", which is her Aunt's name. How cute is that!


And Kennady loved our Wiley. Kennady is so full of energy and creativity and passion. She loves life and savors every single moment.


What a sweetheart of a family. We love you guys to pieces!
And Kathy, having all of you here made our Thanksgiving extra special. Love you too!


Hiking South Mountain after two days of rain. Gorgeous!

8 comments:

Skerrib said...

I LOVE South Mountain park! Our cross country course in high school was there so I spent many practices & meets on the trails. Ah...good memories.

I know Randy smiles other times, but somehow the ones with Emolyn are the sweetest (my parents are the same way with Reese =).

I'm glad you had a fantastic week. Very, very fun.

NanAZ said...

Great pics and sounds like you had a blast. You must be exhausted! I love the pic of you, Randy & Emolyn. You should definitely put that in your Christmas letter.

brandi said...

Linda, Kathy was just over and she gave me the white serving dish from you. Let me just tell you now how much I LOVE IT!!!! Thank you so much!
XOXOXO
Brandi

Shell in your Pocket said...

Sounds like you had a great Thanksgiving! Love your pictures!
-sandy toes

Nicole T said...

you got so many great pictures. What a fun time having them in town, i hope we convinced them to move here!

Anonymous said...

linda, what great shots and notes, I feel like I experienced the day with you.

Kristen said...

We miss you guys already!! When we got about a mile from our home we asked Mya "where are we" and she said "no I go on trip". Both her and kennady could have stayed forever! They just made there selves at home. Thank you for all that you did to make our stay awesome!

Kristen said...

haha just read Nicoles comment...we will let you know how we feel about that after we come visit you during the summer!!!

I would love to be closer to everyone we would have a blast!