A California Thanksgiving 2008

Last year was the first time I had been home with my family for Thanksgiving since the Thanksgiving of 1997. I generally celebrated my Utah Thanksgivings with my co-workers, and that was usually after a long day of working at the MTC or Heritage. I loved being home last year. This year I decided to continue the "being with family" for the holiday idea, and I flew to Sacramento to spend the weekend with my brother, James' family.

I woke up on Thanksgiving morning and was happy to join my friends from home in Kansas who also live here in Salt Lake City; Jeremiah, Marcie, Jimmy & Natalie to watch a bit of the Macy's Thanksgiving day parade before being taken to the airport. I love the parade! It's just an exciting tradition of welcoming in the Christmas season (hence the reason I firmly believe no Christmas music should be played on radio stations before then!!)
Plus they always feature performances from the recent musicals on Broadway, and that just makes me happy!

So I landed in Sacramento at about noon. My brother, James, is a running maniac! His family runs a 5K every year to raise money for "Sacramento's Feed the Hungry." They picked me up right after finishing the 5K. My nieces are the best! I just love those girls! James' wife, Krista, is from Hong Kong, so she doesn't do the whole "Thanksgiving day cooking" thing. For lunch we had some leftover hamburger helper, corn on the cob, grapes and tomato soup.
I guess their usual tradition is to go to IHOP or Boston Market after the race, but they came to the airport instead this time. Part of me was a little sad, but I was just happy to be with my family.

We played Rock Band for most of the afternoon. (We're the Player family-of course, we did!) There was nothing more hilarious than my 7 yr old niece knowing every word to Nirvana's "In Bloom, " as well as other songs. (I kinda got into it too!)

Well after our Rock Band party, I was pleasantly surprised when James informed me we would be joining some neighbors for a Thanksgiving dinner. I must admit I was
excited to be able to have turkey, pumpkin pie, and all the fixings after all. (The neighbors actually had fried the turkey)-that was a first for me.

It was fun to mingle with the neighbors, and play games with the kids (especially for the fact that I didn't have to document their behavior afterwards like I would at work).

FLASHBACK!: Ok so in May 2004, I went to Sacramento for 10 days to take care of my nieces while James & Krista went to Hawaii. At the time my nieces were, 9, 7, 5 & 3. The air conditioner broke right before they were leaving and there wasn't really any time for it to be fixed. I figured I had lived in Spain without air conditioning, so I'd survive-after all, Northern California in the springtime is nice. Well it was SUPER hot! (especially upstairs). So every night the girls would go to bed and the heat really worried me. One by one I would carry them downstairs after they were drenched in sweat and asleep. I'd carry the first one and put her on the couch and then put her mattress on the floor downstairs. Then I'd move the next one, and then her mattress as well. It continued until there was enough mattress room for all 4 girls to sleep down there in the cooler room. They'd wake up every morning surprised and wonder "how'd we get down here?" Now you would think it would have been common sense for me to just leave the mattresses down there rather than moving them back & forth night after night. No way! Having them all "fall asleep in the same "bed" down in the family room, that never would have happened. Well after about day 4, the girls knew they were ALWAYS going to wake up in the family room, so they begged to just sleep down there together and they PROMISED they'd be good. I gave in...(have you met these girls? you would have given in too)...and they WERE awesome about it!!! So we did that the rest of the time I was there and it started what the girls have since referred to as the "Aunt Tiff slumber party."

UNFLASH:-Back to Thanksgiving-
So we had an "Aunt Tiff slumber party"..except this time, However, now that the air conditioning is not a problem, it's turned into us staying up WAY past bedtime playing around taking pictures and pretending to be eskimos(SSShhh! Don't tell Mom & Dad, but come on-That's what Aunts are for, right?)



We crammed 4 of us onto the bottom bunk bed. It was hilarious! The girls were so good, as always. I can admit, however, that at 4am, I left and went to sleep in Lily's empty bed. I had no covers, plus Iris was sprawled across me, and Jasmine's feet were in my face and armpit somehow. Holly, on the other hand, is 13 and was "too cool" to join us-
(and I hope you read this too, Holly! LOL, I love you!)
As for the rest of the weekend, we went to see High School Musical 3. I liked it a lot! I think those movies are even more fun when I get to see them with my nieces, but apparently this time, I liked it more than all of them. HA!

Saturday we went to walk around the outdoor shops and checked out the new mall in town-We bought nothing (as is the Player way-We're not big shoppers/spenders). The weather was great!

I had planned to leave on Sunday, but instead i spent the whole day in the Sacramento airport without ever getting on a plane. 8am-6pm. yay for flying standby (you may save some money, but you sure sacrifice a lot of time). Monday morning my sister-in-law and I left the house at 5am for the 6:10am flight to SLC. Traffic, accident on the freeway, severe fog, security, holiday & Monday business travelers all made a nasty combination which resulted in me arriving at the gate just in time to see them closing the door on the 6:10am plane. I admit I actually cried a little when the gate agent told me it was leaving with open seats and they had been calling my name for 10 minutes. ARGH! I was too frustrated to sit in the airport again all day, so luckily (knowing I was running late, Krista had waited for me outside). I went back and spent another lovely day with the family! Krista and I went shopping and, of course I had to go to In N Out before leaving town.


The girls were excited when they came home from school and I was still there. We went on a bike ride to "Save Iris' homework" which she had left at school by mistake, and then I helped Jasmine with her math. Down with long division in 4th grade. (I'm pretty sure I probably cried back then as well!) it was good to have one more day with the family.

Krista took me again on Tuesday, bright and early and I got on the 6:10am flight, without any problems and landing in Salt Lake City at 8:30am with plenty of time to get to work.

Two lessons I learned this Thanksgiving
#1-I love spending it with my family
#2 I bought a REAL plane ticket home for Christmas...no more standby during the holidays