Click image to enjoy fresh Brazilian Corn

THANKSGIVING DAY for 336

The morning was one of cooking, baking and getting ready to go out to Great Grandpa Cornwall's in La Canada. Expecting a large crowd there was a Monrovia turkey as well as a La Canada turkey. Mom also did yams (one with and one without nuts), green bean casserole, and roles.
It was fun to have a new generation of little personalities at the bar.
It ended up that 31 of us were there for Thanksgiving Dinner.

Thanksgiving in a Hotel

It is always fun to be able to associate an event with a special circumstance. This year will forever be remembered as "remember the year we had Thanksgiving in the hotel?" and we will look back with     fondness. We were nice and gave our little Tom Turkey a spa  day before we cooked him!   

 

Then he enjoyed a nice long sauna! We thought it made him look delicious! (I don't know why the picture flipped... sorry!)

 We prepared for this occasion while packing and left out some extra pots and pans so we would be able to make everything we wanted. We had a lovely spread of food this year.

Which everyone seemed to enjoy.

 Don't be fooled by that face, he had a lovely dinner!

 Things went smoothly in our hotel oven, and we were very pleased with the results. What a glorious Thanksgiving day we are enjoying together. We hope you all have a very Happy Thanksgiving also!

TURKEY PRELIMINARIES

The gang coming to 336 for Thanksgiving are here. The arrivals started Monday evening when when mom and dad picked up Jeffreys' friend, Reesa at LAX.

Mom and Reesa spent Tuesday making acorns (or a-corn-walls as dad calls them) out of mini vanilla wafers, kisses and a chocolate chip. They made a whole boat-load of pilgrim hats out of fudge-stripe cookies and Reeses peanut butter cup. Place cards for Thursday are a netted bunch of a-corn-walls with a hand painted leaf (by Reesa).

On Tuesday night it was a non-race race to see if the van load of Andersons driving 6 hours from San Jose or Jeffrey and Sarah, driving 10 hours from Provo would get to 336 first. Amazingly they pulled into the driveway within about 10 minutes of each other at about 12:30 a.m. safe and (for-the-most-part) sound.
Wednesday was a beautiful day for a visit to Lacey Park, which included a picnic....
... and a lot of swinging, swinging, swinging....


The afternoon was topped off with dessert at the Fair Oaks Pharmacy Soda Fountain in South Pasadena. We joined two tables on the sidewalk and shared two ginormous banana splits (in preparation for tomorrows Thanksgiving feast).

Click image to enjoy fresh Brazilian Corn

Home School

It would be more appropriately titled "Hotel School" but you get the point. During our few weeks in the hotel I will be doing school with paisley. Today is brought to you by the letter Ll and the number 3! Paisley has been missing going to school for the past few days, and now that we are settled and things are put in their place we can now get to work! As you can see she LOVES it!

Goodbye Manchester Ct...

On Thursday, with help of some friends, we loaded up our moving truck. After a midnight movie for me (hehe) and spending the night at some friends house, we closed on our house early on Friday morning and took off for Missouri!

We have learned many thing during our time in Kansas. We learned about relying on each other. We were alone in Kansas and had to survive with each others help. We had friends that helped us along the way, but we needed each other! We learned what it takes to be home owners (a lot of the time it is HARD WORK!) We learned that we know nothing about caring for a yard, and really need to get better about that. We learned that just because you hire a professional to do the work, doesn't mean it is going to turn out right. We also learned that doing it ourselves pretty much guarantees it won't turn out right... the first time! But we tried, tried again and got it right. We learned that we are capable of MUCH more than we think we are. When you need to be strong and do it, you can do it! We learned what it means to have a testimony of the Gospel. When church is far and less than convenient, yet you attend every week without fail, your testimony changes a little. That was a small sacrifice when compared to the big picture, but nonetheless a sacrifice.

Now here we are with a small interim in a hotel room, but we look forward to this:

We love our future new home in Missouri. There will be more projects to work on and more lessons to learn. We will still be alone and still need to rely on each other. We will make new friends and have new experiences. Some things will be a little easier than in Kansas. We are more central to more amenities, church will be closer, the temple will be WAY closer. We will always have a beautiful view in our backyard.

And some fun times with yummy marshmallows and hot dogs over the fire pit!

It was sad to say goodbye. We miss our friends, and we miss paisley's fantastic school, but look forward to all the wonderful possibilities of our new home, and new state!