Skip to main content

Thanksgiving 2023

 This year we got to host Thanksgiving at our house. It's been at my brother's house the last several years but he let me do it this year. We had 35 people and a lot of great food and it turned out really well.

We started the day with a Bergeson Fun Run 5K:Thanks to Caroline and Everett who organized it! We ran/scootered/walked about 5 kilometers out on the canal trail. Then we had breakfast. They brought bagels and cream cheese. I made some oatmeal and made a smoothie after the run to go with the bagels. It was fun and delicious.

About noon, guests started trickling in, showing up with their contributions. We smoked a turkey, roasted a turkey, and warmed up a spiral-sliced ham and made some gravy. People brought mashed potatoes, stuffing, dressing, fruit salad, green salad, rolls, olives, green bean casserole, mac 'n cheese, and lots of different kinds of pie. We had English Walnut Pecan Chocolate pie, pumpkin pie, butternut squash pie, Oreo pie, apple pie, French Silk pie, lemon icebox pie, and Key lime pie. And I probably forgot one or two.

Dinner started about 1:30 after my father read the traditional editorial from the Wall Street Journal, we all said something we were thankful for, and we prayed.

Then we ate lots of food followed by games afterwards and the new Disney movie for the teenagers. Scott took the little boys out to the trampoline and jumped quite a while in the cold. In the evening some people went ice skating at Peaks for free thanks to the perk of being related to Michelle. It was all a fun time.










Katie was very busy with the scissors and stapler making crowns and badges for us. I got a little badge that said, "Best Oma Ever!"













Comments

Popular posts from this blog

2024 Hansen Family Reunion, Wednesday

Recently we had another Hansen Family Reunion at Bear Lake. We've been having these destination reunions since 2008. There were about 70 of us in attendance. Bruce and Michelle organized the activities and did a good job. I enjoyed myself! Hopefully lots of other people did too. We showed up on Wednesday afternoon and enjoyed a taco salad dinner, served by Neil and Kristie's family. We also worked on two mixer games:  a word search with the names of all 100 Hansen family members as well as a Bingo card that involved finding people with different attributes like recent high school graduation, birthdays in certain months, etc. The word search was definitely the most popular. Also popular was playing Nine-Square and Sandy Pickle (a cross between pickle ball and badminton). Thys and Katrina might have won! After dinner, we had an FHE activity/lesson. Liz had made a book with stories of the first ancestors to join the church. She had selected different stories for us to act out in g...

Hansen Family Reunion 2024, Thursday afternoon

For lunch on Thursday, Lauren and Kurt made Cafe Rio which was delicious.  On Thursday afternoon, we had free time at the lake. Heidi and Aaron rented a pontoon boat and took people out for rides. This was very popular. Some of us went on the kayaks and/or swimming or just hung out on the beach.

Book Review: Out of My Mind by Sharon Draper

This is a juvenile fiction book about a young girl named Melody with severe cerebral palsy.  Her body doesn't allow her to feed herself, speak, or do much at all.  She's very intelligent with a photographic memory but she can't really communicate.  Finally, in 5th grade, she gets a "Medi-Talker" which is a computer that speaks what she types in.  Finally she has a voice. This book explores what it is like to be severely physically disabled but not mentally disabled. It seems like one of the most frustrating of all scenarios.  She is completely aware of all the cruelty (subtle and otherwise) that her classmates inflict on her because they don't really want to include her in their activities.  One of the saddest moments in the book comes when she realizes that every one of her special ed classmates is kind, where the "normal" ones are not.  Who really has the worse disability? The book was a quick read and fairly enjoyable.  Wha...