Collin and Stefani: Thanksgiving Weekend

We had a great Thanksgiving this year! The Sunday before we had the traditional "Cragun Pie Night". Collin's family all growing up would have a Pie Night the night before Thanksgiving. Everyone would bring pie and you could pig out on pie before you stuff yourself full of food. We had a Cragun Pie Night of our own here. We invited 8 other families plus the 2 sets of missionaries in our ward. We had soup and then tons of pies that people brought. We made a caramel apple and a peanut butter. Other pies people brought were chocolate creme, a cookie kind of one, apple, pecan, chocolate strawberry, sopapilla, banana creme, and I can't remember what else. It was a very full house that's for sure. We moved our table into the kitchen for the pies to be on and to create more sitting room. We had tons of fun and will definitely keep that tradition the rest of the time we are out here.
On Thanksgiving we watched the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade. I grew up watching it and it just wouldn't feel like Thanksgiving without it. We then skyped with the Cragun family. We miss being around the family especially on holidays, but one day we will get to again! We then went to a family in the ward's house where we had a fantastic Thanksgiving dinner with a few other families. It's so nice being away from home but still having a ward family here that we belong to. It definitely makes things tons better! Collin went to Black Friday after that hoping to get a TV to replace our monstrous one we have now. Well, he succeeded and got a few other things for Christmas. After that we went to another family's house to watch the Seahawks vs Niners game. Collin loves the Niners and their family loves the Seahawks. It was nice to have so many things to do and people to spend time with.
Friday we skyped with my family. We also set up the Christmas tree. Scott had fun watching us decorate it. That night we went to Festival of Trees. Scott was screaming the whole way there so we were a little worried that we weren't going to be able to stay there. However, once we got inside and he had lots to see he was fine. One of our friends made costumes for the Nutcracker and her daughter was Clara. They were performing part of it there so we had to go watch. It was awesome and we loved watching it and the costumes were incredible!! Neither of us have seen the Nutcracker so it was a great introduction to it. There were also really cool gingerbread houses on display.
Saturday we went to the temple. We've missed going, even though the last time we went was August. We were going monthly before so our life has felt like something's been missing. Scott slept the whole 2 hours there. We took turns watching him while the other was in the temple. The weather was beautiful too! Scott slept most of the way home with just a slight crying session for about 5 minutes.
We love this time of year and all the traditions, family time, memories, and feelings it brings. This year it is even more special now that we have Scott here!