Vomit ... Flares ... More Vomit ... and Family

Happy Thanksgiving everyone! We had a rather unusual holiday (as the title of the post might indicate). Sherri came over and helped me finish my pies late Wednesday night (thanks Sherri!) and I just have to say that having an oven that cooks evenly is amazing! My pies haven't turned out so well in years! Anyway, we got to bed rather late and decided to let the kids be the alarm (since they never sleep past 6:30). Of course, they slept past 7 and to make it better, sometime during the night Ben threw up and just went back to sleep in it ... he wasn't ill, so I just figure he had post-nasal-drip which set off his hair trigger gag reflex. At any rate, that put us a bit behind schedule (we were planning to drive off between 7:30 and 8). We made it out by 9:30 and headed out to Temecula ... we were about 30 miles away and it was time for dinner to start, so I started called to let people know not to wait since we were bringing dessert when we notice a car off to the side of the road with my brother-in-law standing outside! Sure enough, their transmission just quit and they were stuck. We got over and noticed that people were getting right up to the van before changing lanes ... another accident in the making ... and I remembered seeing flares in our car. I have to tell you that when I married Byron (5 years ago) I found these flares in the back of the garage and threw them into the trunk to "be prepared." Ha! We finally got to use them ... once we figured out how to light them. The instructions are less than illucidating. Not only that, they only burned for about 20 minutes and people just kept driving right over them - one guy had his tire just smoking for at least a mile down the freeway (I guess no one realized that bright pink flame was actually fire ... go figure! Sooooo we all finally make it to dinner (which is only three hours later than planned, not bad) and have a great time!

My sister and her husband are in town from Utah visiting with relatives in Norco, so after dinner they met us at the now deceased van to get David's tools and we all caravan out to Mom & Dad's to drop off David, Banae and the kids (and tools). Apparently, Brian & Brandy's family Thanksgivind dinner included lots of pie, cranberry jello, orange soda and a bounce house - see where this is going? We got to Hesperia and all three of Brandy's daughters had brought back up what looked like twice their own body weight - in the back seat of the Suburban ... so we stayed with Mom and Dad for a bit while everyone got bathed and the car re-packed. We made it home before midnight, amazingly. Brooke rode with us so that she wouldn't have to be around her sisters who took plastic bags and threw up a couple of more times. We still had to let her out on the downside of Walker Pass to bring up the popcorn that Grandma Bekki thought the kids might like while they were waiting for us to clean up in Hesperia, but hey, who could imagine that popcorn would grow like that in a 9 yr old tummy? Lots of fun, lots of family, and a memorable holiday for all!