Thanksgiving 2021

A family in our ward invited us to spend Thanksgiving with them.  I was SOOO grateful because remember I hadn't cooked anything at this point.  I did make our favorite mile high chocolate pie to take though.  It was fun.  We did a puzzle and the missionaries were there. Our ward members were super friendly and kind.  

We also made our way to Kansas City to go to the temple.   We took the kids to Encanto as well for a treat.  

The kids loved it.  I cried.  Elena cried.  Leo did not like it--felt it was too depressing.  I call PTSD.  He did like how many things they included from Colombian culture.  It was pretty impressive.

It was obvious at a pit stop that we were outside our normal cultural home.  Sweet tea anyone?

 Gorgeous sunset.  The Flint Hills are pretty too.  

I felt this to my bones with all the stuff I was ordering online for the house and Christmas.  Plus buying house stuff from Facebook marketplace.

When I first saw the house in the video walk through that Leo did with me, I KNEW my kitchen stuff would not fit--seriously, I was so spoiled in Evanston--and I told him I wanted to pay for a new custom island that would have lots of storage space and kind of use up that awkward breakfast area.  However, after obtaining a couple quotes of $7,000-$12,000, I found this hutch for $400 and jumped on it.  I feel this was a tender mercy.  I was so upset about our Wichita house, the kitchen in particualar, hadn't cooked for a month and just was overwhelmed by my kids being so upset as well, and when I found this I was amazed, because usually hutches like this sell for $2,000-$4,000 and I had coveted one for years.  And it's perfect, fits everything we need, and totally made me satisfied with our kitchen set up.  

Kayaker, I think Nicolas made (maybe Sebas) with waxi sticks on the car ride.

We thought these would replace our lockers in our old house, but since they aren't where the kids go by--they're in the garage--they don't get used much, but still enough that I'm grateful we found them because they just keep things less cluttered. The person selling it was even nice enough to drive it to our house when they didn't fit in the trailer we had rented.

This replaced our office/library.  I was pretty impressed with myself that I found something that fit our printer, office supplies, files, art supplies, school supplies, etc and fit in the little corner of the downstairs.  Well, actually, I just felt pretty blessed.  Another tender mercy.

Driving back from Kansas City we shared what we were thankful for in an attempt for kids to say something positive about Kansas.  It pretty much failed.  In truth, most the kids stayed upset about moving to Kansas till around the year mark of living here.  Elena WEPT about the move for a good 3 months at least 3-4 times a week.  She still hates it here the most.  I can't really blame her though.  I was taken by surprise at how upsetting I found the move too.  Crazy how unexpected life can be.  

Wilford the goat we bought and named for a Syrian refugee family.  We had bought one the year before too.  My kids loved that they got to name this one.