Thanksgiving Break we ended up hosting the big dinner at our house. It is usually at Celeste's house, but they just opened their second Crumbl store and things were a little hectic for them. As always, the food was great and so was the company. Of course, I have no pictures (I've really got to do better!). We were grateful that Steve was able to make it for the evening and he has been feeling better. Gloria, Phil and Marney passed on the gathering due to Marney's age and Phil's health. There was a lot of controversy building up for the Thanksgiving holidays nationally as the government urged people to not travel and keep their Thanksgiving gatherings small. Most people didn't listen. :) For the whole week, we enjoyed lots of family time.
Highlights:
- Who came to our gathering this year: Our family (7), Jim and Celeste family, plus Ryan and Vivian came in town (7), Steve and Deseret (2), Tyler's family (5), Lauren's family (4), Alex's family (3) and Heather, Maggie and Marney (3). It was a fun bunch!
- For the Turkey Bowl, Hyrum and Zach collided splitting Hyrum's eyelid and Zach's lip got split open and had to get stitches. Thank goodness for Tyler, our family doctor. Hyrum's healed up okay.
- We played Quiplash, Speed Uno and lots of good conversation. We celebrated Celeste, Deseret, and Leecy's birthdays.
- Marshall, Bret, and Hyrum went and camped out at Matt's cabin. This year Paul was in town, so there were more boys to join the fun. Hyrum hopes to make this a yearly tradition. They had Hyrum, Ethan, Paul, Miles, Benson, James, Lyric, Otis, and Matt. Grandpa came and hung out for a while to enjoy the evening around the fire.
Starting back to school the older boys were back on a hybrid schedule due to Covid-19 numbers rising. For the younger boys, they had a normal schedule but ended up taking Thursday and Friday to hybrid due to too many teachers getting the virus. It was a bit of a crazy week.
The biggest event this past week was having another adult in the house!
Liam is 18!!!
Eighteen!
It's so hard to believe Jarom and I have been parents for 18 years.
Liam was planning this trip to Dollywood with his friends but that didn't pan out, so he requested Little Caesers pizza for dinner.
Liam loves anything peanut butter. I constantly find him eating out of the peanut butter container or he is making some kind of shake, usually consisting of bananas and peanut butter. Here we had Lunch Lady Peanut Butter bars.
Preston McPheters is one of Liam's best friends and one of the only members that he goes to high school with. Preston is between Liam and Tipton's age and is at our place all the time. haha They play football for hours in the yard. Liam also loves being with Kevin, Lance, and Zach.
Liam has managed to get pulled over only once since he's had his driver's license, he just managed to get three tickets from that one incident. With COVID issues his court dates have been canceled twice. Maybe we won't have to pay! He's only had one fender-bender. Not too bad for a new driver.
Now he can officially vote. Georgia is a runoff that will determine the senate for the new presidency. It's a HUGE race that the entire USA is watching. We just added one more republican vote. It's kind of crazy.
Bret loves having his picture taken and he loves his brothers. Liam and Bret are buddies.
This past year has been a hard year but Liam has worked really hard. He took on a very physically and time-consuming job this year to by time with his open schedule due to COVID-19. Now he has saved enough money to pay for all his mission and some college. He now works at Crumbl with his cousins, Tipton, and Preston. He is a hard worker. He works hard in school even though "senioritis" is kicking in quickly. He maintains a 3.94 GPA. He doesn't do any fancy clubs or extracurricular at schools and really doesn't care about all that fluff, he just wants to do well in school.
I've noticed Liam is always good with his grandparents. He always talks to Papa and helps Grandmother with Marney. Marney loves Liam. He enjoys sitting and visiting with Grandpa and always gives hugs to Grandma and Grandmother.
Liam is creative and likes to be in charge. He's got the vocation test to prove it! We hope he works to develop those leadership qualities and look forward to what he decides for his future.
He has applied to BYU and BYU-I and plans to serve a mission, which he would love if it was in Madagascar.
This year has unpredictable but we have made the most of it. As Liam journeys out into the next stage of his life, I hope next year holds better circumstances for him. We love Liam and can't wait to see what his future holds!
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