The Secret's In the Sauce...

Slept in a little bit - maybe until about 8:30.  Melon Man had already made some biscuits and gravy for breakfast, but I just wasn't hungry.  I was super stinky so I jumped into the shower and got cleaned up.  I worked on another vacation blog entry and was so cold because I didn't get fully dressed and my hands were like ice while I was typing, so I put my mittens on to warm them up.  They were so warm and cozy that I ended up falling asleep sitting in the office chair!  I woke up and did a little more on my blog and then decided I was finally hungry so I went to get some biscuits and gravy.  I ate those, tied a few bows for the ward Christmas party decorations and then....yep, fell asleep again while watching tv.  Luckily, it wasn't for 7 hours this time though!  I woke up and it was just a few minutes after 3.  I woke Melon Man up and we got ready to head to Gilbert to have dinner with the family.  We were originally supposed to go to Nik and Anissa's and have mexican food, but Tere had a late afternoon photo shoot to do, so we agreed to meet at Joe's BBQ in downtown Gilbert instead.  We just love a good BBQ place (our favorite is still Phil's in San Diego).  We got there around 5:40 and secured some tables and chairs for our group.  It was kind of hard because we needed 18 seats for all of us, but eventually we accomplished it.

It was so much fun seeing everyone again!  Nik and Anissa's kids are growing so fast.  Robyn has shot up like a weed.  At first, Landon and Olivia didn't remember us, but they finally warmed up to us.  It was great to see Noah, Giselle, and Rajko again since they moved to Utah this summer.  Dak and Tara were there too and that was really nice because we'd never met them before.  They live in Santa Monica, California.  We will have to look them up the next time we go to California and see if we can hook up somewhere.  Anissa's dad and two brothers were there too, along with some of Nik and Noah's friends from Guatemala.  It was crazy but fun.  Lary and Tere are just a lot of fun to be with and we are just so glad to have them close (well, sort of close - 57 miles) to us!

We (well, Tere) took some pictures (mine didn't turn out too well so I'm waiting for her to email me some) just before we left.  Once I get them, I'll come back and post them here.

After we were done eating, we all headed back to Nik and Anissa's house to hang out for a while.  The kids all got put to bed and the adults visited for a while.  Just before the kids went down though, Nik surprised everyone with an impromptu bagpipe number.  He is on the police department honor guard and is in parades and such and is now learning to play the bagpipes as well.  It was REALLY loud, but cool that he knows how to play them.

We left to head home around 9:45.  It took us a little more than an hour to get home, but we talked about what a good time we'd had.  Oh, how I love having family from both of our sides here!  What a great pre-Thanksgiving night we had!