Auntie Ondra & Tom's Wedding- Springdale

 We were able to join the whole Nelson familia in Springdale, Utah neighboring Zion National Park to celebrate Auntie Ondra's wedding with Tom. We are so happy for her!
Rae was looking particularly grown up in these pictures. There was an extra hairstylist available so my Aunt asked me if I would like my hair done. I've never had my hair professionally styled for a formal occasion. I felt so pampered and beautiful.
Sheehan and the kids had lots of fun with the selfie station props as you can see from all of the pictures.
Lincoln and Rae loved dancing. through the reception.
Vance of course only wanted to Swim, swim, SWIM!
It was a party and I loved all of the little cousins swimming and playing together while my (now adult) cousins and I all played together! What fun!

Carpinteria Thanksgiving Where Everyone Got Sick

I had a head cold before we started this trip. I also had started off November in the hospital for 5 days with a bowel micro-tear. It was a stressful time. I started a new strict diet, was taking steroids, but was feeling ready to get out and carry-on with our annual trip to Carpinteria for Thanksgiving.
On the drive down Lincoln threw up and by the time we got into the hotel I was also not feeling well. We made it up to our hotel room in Barstow and Lincoln fell asleep in the tub.
I was so exhausted. We made it 8 hours and had several more before we would reach Carpinteria. I also didn't want to get anyone else sick in case this was a stomach bug and not just the 4 bags of Doritos Lincoln ate on the drive down. I text my family that we would be turning around the next morning and cancelled our hotel rooms and begged them to refund us. They did allow the refund so we went to sleep and prepared to leave the next morning. By morning everyone was acting fine, and despite my pleadings to just head back home, Sheehan had uncancelled our hotel reservations and told his family we would still all of them for breakfast. Colleen stayed that night with us in the hotel.

 We joined the Mauldin's for Thanksgiving dinner. I didn't get to eat most of the meal with my diet restrictions but I had not doubt it was really delicious given the cooking talent in the Mauldin family. It was really windy and cold all week so it was nearly impossible to be outside at all. Unfortunately the weather didn't get any better for thanksgiving day so we ended up eating in our (or other people's in our case) motorhomes.

I brought a bunch of crafts to do with the kids and Julianne and Devyco were kind enough to let me make a mess of the trailer crafting with the kiddos. 

Our kids had a great time playing in our hotel room. Rae brought all sorts of stuffed animals to play with.

We were lucky to get a quick visit in with Uncle Eddie and Jayden Blair!

 

We were able to visit Grandma Patty and Payne at Ihop on the drive home.

It was fun, we made memories with our families, a few more family members did get sick (so we prob brought the stomach flu), and we were exhausted. We made there and back safe though which is a blessing!