Thanksgiving Part I: A "Midnight" Sundae

For the first time in three years, we spent Thanksgiving with family. Per our yearly rotation, this year Thanksgiving would be with the Burk side of the family. Charlene and Mark decided this year to break out of our normal routine and wanted to head down to Bryce Canyon for Thanksgiving. For the past few years, they had been getting invitations to spend Thanksgiving there with some family friends who always have a big catered Thanksgiving dinner. I thought this was a marvelous idea. A catered Thanksgiving dinner meant no cooking and, more importantly, no clean-up afterwards. Nate, however, took much more convincing. The mere idea of having some strangers be in charge of his favorite holiday teetered somewhere between insanity and blasphemy. After a little coaxing, and some "holidays are meant to be spent with family" talks, he acquiesced and we joined the rest of the Burk clan for some good old fashioned fun in Southern Utah.

We left Salt Lake Wednesday afternoon with our little family. Mark, Charlene, Neal, Erin, and Liam were going to carpool together while Scott and his girlfriend, Angela, came up from Las Vegas. Poor Spencer was stuck back in Rochester working in the hospital. I guess if you are in your first year of residency, getting time off for holidays just doesn't happen. As we headed down I-15, we encountered a lot of traffic which was no surprise. Ever the antsy one, Nate bailed off the free-way, and we opted for the more scenic route which included two-lane highways and small remote Utah towns. Once everyone got to Ruby's Inn, we all had dinner together. Everyone except Erin and I had the "all you can eat" buffet. Would it surprise you that on a plate this full of food, Hudson ate nearly two thirds of it? Nate spent more time shoveling food into Hudson then he did feeding himself. After our visit, I am sure the establishment will rethink their "kids eat free" policy.

That night the festivities kicked off with a Wednesday Night Sundae Social. Neal was gracious enough to stay behind at the lodge with the sleeping babies after he made Erin promise to bring him back a bowl of ice-cream. And so the rest of the family ventured out to gorge ourselves on ice-cream and cookies.

Now what is a little girl to do when she has to choose between two flavors of ice-cream and cookies? Well, ever the diplomatic one, Brynlee didn't want to show favoritism, so Grandma Charlene gave her a sample of every flavor available. I think she should have a sleep-over in Grandma and Papa's room tonight, don't you?