A Thanksgiving We'll Always Remember

I thinks it's because we're home owners...when you're home owners people automatically think you're an 'adult'...when you're an 'adult' you get assigned a food item for Thanksgiving. This year was not our first Thanksgiving together but it was our first Thanksgiving contributing to the massive amounts of food to be consumed. Our assignment was jello and celery. I was very happy with our assignment. I thought to myself "Oh I can't screw up a jello, and putting cheese in the celery is a cinch." Part of what I thought was true. I didn't quite screw up the jello and only Gordon and I knew what I did (and now all of you).

I didn't want to make just any jello (we are the jello state) so I thought I would add a little flare with my topping by making a whip cream/cream cheese topping. Nothing new, just yummy. I also added vanilla ice cream to the jello mix to make it creamy (orange creamsicle is what I was going for). I got to this point and put the jello in the fridge to partially set up. I was going to add mandarin oranges for texture and yumminess. I let the jello set up too much. I was still able to add the oranges, it was just much more difficult than it should have been (that's where Gordon stepped in and decided he could do a better job). I covered the ugly jello with the topping and it looked perfect. Underneath the topping was a mess. It still tasted awesome though and no one said anything about how different the jello looked inside...maybe they didn't want to make me feel bad. None the less, people ate it.

This year was also a first for my Burton side to split up for Thanksgiving. There are just about 100 family members on that side of the family and it was long over due for us to stop getting a church to hold Thanksgiving (yep, ward party style) and have a more personable dinner in smaller numbers. So in light of this new tradition, my family combined with my Aunt Lyda's family to celebrate Thanksgiving. It was held at her house and still was not a small event (there were still 22 of us).

Because we live so close to my Grandma now, we were asked to pick her up. We got to her house and instead of driving to my Aunt Lyda's like we had planned, we drove to the Emergency Room. When we got to my Grandma's house she was having a hard time breathing and felt nauseated. She looked like she had been crying. She told us to take the yams (which are the best ever!) and go without her. I felt a little weird doing this. Thanksgiving is her favorite holiday and I didn't want her to spend it alone. My Grandma is very stubborn and wouldn't come with us, so we left. I called my mom immediately and told her what was going on. She had no idea and told us to turn around and go get her. So we did. We barely made it out of her driveway when she got really sick to her stomach and had to go back inside. I was so scared for her. I do not do well in these kind of situations, especially when my own family is involved. I called my mom to tell her what happened and everyone was telling me to take her to the ER. She did NOT want to go there. She said her faith is in the Lord not doctors, and she wanted a priesthood blessing first. Understandable. So she called her home teacher and had him come over to give her a blessing. Because you need two priesthood holders, Gordon was able to assist in the blessing. I know I have said this before, but I am so blessed to have a husband who honors and holds the priesthood. This was the second time Gordon had given a healing blessing. He did a wonderful job. Her blessing was beautiful. She was told she needed to go to her doctors. That's the only reason she let us take her there. I'm glad she did because her symptoms were much worse than we thought.

She is still in the hospital. The doctors and specialists are running A LOT of tests to see what's going on. She has been relatively healthy until she turned 80 almost 2 years ago. She's doing a bit better but we're still waiting for some doctors to see her.

We'll always remember "the Thanksgiving that almost didn't happen." We thought for sure that we would be up at the hospital all evening long with my Grandma, but my Mom and Aunt told us to leave and eat with the rest of the family. So we did. It was nice to spend the evening with family. My cousin Doug made a "surprise" visit from Tennessee. It was great to see him. Like always the little girls were excited to see Gordon. When it came time to move onto to the next family event Kaylee said to Gordon "You can't leave. You have to stay for one more hour and a half!" and when he said he couldn't she said "OK, just a half hour." It was adorable. She's such a cutie!

This Thanksgiving made me especially thankful for families. Gordon and I have such wonderful families. Lately we have told each other how blessed we are to have been born and married into the families that we have. We couldn't have asked for better eternal families.