Growing Up Johnson: Thanksgiving 2015

I can't believe Thanksgiving was already nearly a week ago. It all happened too fast. We were so lucky to have ten full days intertwined with visitors, including my brother, grandparents, & my dad. I am always so happy to have so much family all under one roof. There were many late nights and moments of endless laughter. My grandma's laugh alone is contagious enough to bring me to tears, regardless if something is actually funny or not. These are the memories that matter to me the most.

My brother was the star of Lyla & Max's world for the first few days, as he was our first arrival of the visitors. He happily complied with all of their pretend games & didn't even swear at us when I instructed the kids to jump on his bed in the morning. I would normally let guests sleep as long as they wish, but not Jake. And he expects that sort of [loving] torture from me, so you don't have to feel bad for him or anything. I mean... his t-shirt that reads "my life vs. your vacation" says it all. Lol. Plus, he eventually became immune and was able to sleep through the harassment. That's pretty incredible, if you ask me.

As much as I like to tease my little brother, I am so grateful for his existence. I had a lot to do to get ready for the big feast and he helped me immensely with prep work & keeping the kids occupied. My brother passed the torch soon after my grandma arrived and he returned to the land of beer drinking and rambling about politics. I admire his vast assortment of opinions about the world and enjoy watching him poke at people, especially my dad. He also made an impressive appetizer known as "armadillo eggs" --- proving his culinary skills are on the rise!

My grandma deserves an award for the number of hours she dedicated to pretend play. I think it becomes a chore for most people after spending more than an hour in Lyla & Max world, but not grandma. In fact, I think she possibly enjoys it more than they do. They made up a ghost game, renaming the kids as Casper & Casperina. This continued for hours until Lyla finally said, "Grandma, can you just call me Lyla again?" We laughed and laughed about that. In the downtime of playing ghost games, she convinced Lyla to refer to herself as any of the following: Princess, Queen, Royal Highness, and Majesty. Between that and Lyla learning the phrase "talk to the hand," I think she might have a rough time returning to reality. I don't care though, it was worth it.

We enjoyed a wonderful Thanksgiving dinner together, followed by a dinosaur movie at the theater afterward. It is a very cute movie. I think I cried twelve times, but that may have been due to excess wine consumption. We also visited the giant Christmas tree on Market Street. It's super cool and I would recommend both activities to anyone! My dad arrived the following day, adding more fun to our party. We transitioned right into the Christmas spirit shortly after Thanksgiving by putting up the tree & decorating gingerbread houses. I think to make up for the fact that the rest of the year will be spent apart. We got to hang out with my dad for a few days after everyone else departed and I'll touch more on that in a subsequent blog post.

And in no specific order whatsoever, below is one million photos of our fun. I felt including some captions was necessary on this particular smorgasbord of a blog post. I robbed photos from several different photographers so that's my only explanation for the random blurry shots. Nonetheless, enjoy!

This is the strange, yet wonderful tradition I carried with me from Idaho.