Thanksgiving Trip

I realize this is long over due, but I finally have some time, and the will-power to sit down and share about our super fun trip to Utah for Thanksgiving. Let's start at the very beginning, a wonderful place to start: back at the beginning of college football season Nicholas and I sat down to try and figure out if we could make it to a BYU game. The closest one was in Wyoming, but I had my last economics class on the day of that game, so that wasn't going to happen. The next closest game was in Albequerque which is 6 hours away. We figured instead of driving 6 hours to New Mexico we should drive 7 to Provo and see a couple of Nick's sibilings and relatives while we were there. Then we realized that we could be there over Thanksgiving week, so it was a go. When Nicl's parents heard we were going out, they decided to fly from Oregon. And when Nick's brother in Rexburg, ID heard about all the hullaballoo, they decided to drive down for the week as well. We almost had the whole gang there (Nick's sister in Washington didn't make the trip) which is a recipe for fun! Here are some of our adventures:

Early on in the week we were able to get together with Lauren Davison, Nick's former roommate's wife, and get some pictures for our adoption profile. She is super talented and just did some awesome work. She has a blog and will post more pics soon. I also have some posted on my Facebook page. Here is a small preview:

As you can see I was just thrilled!
What a handsome boy!
This one is super cool and I just love the framing on this!
Our nephews, Zachary and Joshua, just loved playing in the sink. This was taken not more than 20 minutes after arriving at the house the in-laws rented for the week for everyone.

Tuesday was Jessica's, the newest Nelson as of June, birthday so we all celebrated with gifts and a cake. She got Aladdin and it was just proof to me of how awesome she is for loving such a super awesome movie!

This is Joshua just enjoying breakfast: Cheerios and some orange goopy stuff...delish!


One adventure was Rock Band that we borrowed from a friend from Keizer for the week. We all had a lot of fun attempting to rock as hard as Chris does on the drums. He was, for a time, a percussion performance major at BYU and he was freakin awesome! Here he is helping Nicholas with the easiest setting...so funny!

Just to prove that Nick isn't super lame, I needed help with the drums as well. Ashley, Jessica's sister who is also up at BYU-I, is on my left, I'm in the middle, and Jessica is on the right. We stunk so bad, but we had so much fun!

We went go-karting with Kirby and Lauren Davison and had a blast! All the boys raced each other and the all the girls went. It was awesome to be able to drive fast and spin out and no one got too upset with me! The boys reported that I cam in second behind Lauren...we'll try again next time!

On Saturday I caught up with a couple roommates from my freshman year at BYU whom I haven't seen since we moved to Colorado over 2 years ago. Left to right: me (Racho), Virginia Kestler (VK), Jennilyn (J), and J's daughter Katelyn. It was so great to talk with them in person after being separated for so long!

Saturday night we participated in the initial reason for going on the trip, BYU vs. UTAH 2009!! As you can see, BYU won in overtime 26-23 and it was such an awesome game to be at, but as you can also see, a bit chilly.

The last BYU-Utah game we attended was on November 19, 2005...the night Nicholas proposed. On the way back home we took a picture of a reenacted proposal. It didn't look like this at all (I was much more surprised and Nick was much less freaky and we were both much less BYU decked out) but this is the spot where it all happened. "Mem'ries, in the corners of my mind..."

Sunday morning the whole family went to a homecoming for one of Nick's cousins on his mom's side. It was so neat to have the majority of the family there on the pew as part of that special experience. Afterwards we got some pictures taken outside the church.

Then it was time to say goodbye. The Idahoans went home and so did we. It was particuarly sad for Zachary who loves his grandparents so much!

On the way home we drove through Rock Springs, WY, which Nick and I joke about being our dream home. It's got everything you could ever want: Wal-Mart, McDonald's (seen here) and a college where Nick could teach! Yeah, not happening...

We had a fabulous trip and wish we could have seen more people and spent more time with those we did see, but I suppose this just means we'll have to go back someday soon...shucks!