thanksgiving 2019

this thanksgiving was different for our family. our sweet nephew Mateen passed away on November 20, 2019. 

words can't describe the feelings.

the funeral was on Wednesday before thanksgiving. we are so grateful that Chris was able to get time off work to be in UT for it. his coworkers went above and beyond to allow him to go, plus they shared gift cards and money with us to let us know how sad they are for what the family is going through. 

although it was extremely sad circumstances, I know it was a very special time for our family to be together. this is what families are for.

Rikki captured this moment of Mateen and Desi at our wedding reception in 2004 and I will always treasure it. gotta love that hot cocoa mustache he has :)

Ali, Desi, Myra, Tremaine, and Taytum have such unbelievable strength. I admire their faith and positive attitude so very much. they have always been such a force for good in their community and it was so evident to chris while he was there how much they have impacted the lives of all they meet through the outpouring of support and love from the entire community. 

Mateen was so very loved.

spending this time with his siblings and their spouses, his parents, and all the nieces and nephews out west was a gift for chris.

his flights home were crazy, his arrival wasn't until 12:30 that night, and his luggage didn't make it until the next day, but he's home again, hooray!!! 

oh how we missed him!

plus, Andrew Zimmern from Bizzare Foods was on his flight from SLC to Minneapolis, so that's pretty cool!

Mateen's death has allowed us to have some discussion in our family, both immediate and extended, about suicide and depression. it has been a good experience. I don't know if we would've talked to jack and Ellie about those topics any time soon if this hadn't happened, but i'm glad we have. with depression running in both chris and my families, it is something that our children may face, probably will, at some point in their lives. I hope they remember the things we've talked about. and more importantly, I hope they remember that no matter how much people love them, they have to communicate if there is a need or if something isn't right. that's a hard things to understand and do in the depths of depression darkness.

the kids and I had a fantastic thanksgiving here at home! 

we had a HUGE wind storm blow through Wednesday night and we had lots of big branches down in the yard. Ellie girl came to the rescue and hauled all the branches to the fire pit in the back yard. she is a hard worker and it made her papa proud to hear the effort she put in while he was gone!

 we started thanksgiving morning off at the ward Turkey Bowl which jack played QB and running back in and had a great time! we sped home and cooked up a berry pie and our jalapeño popper dip, packed up our green bean casserole, sweet potato casserole, and Ellie's salted caramel chocolate tart, then we headed down to chillicothe to spend the rest of the day with Doug and Denise's family and Marc & DeLauna. the food was great and we had so much fun. sure love this family!

I turned a corner at Doug's and saw this advent hanging on the wall and it made me teary. we had the same advent growing up! turns out Denise did too and when she saw this at a garage sale she snagged it! turns out, it was an Avon thing and both our mom's had bought it through Avon.

so many happy memories with my family! 

family is what this life is all about. 

I know I hit the family jackpot, now with my own family and extended family, and also definitely in the past as well. I've been so blessed in my life and nothing but the love of a Heavenly Father could have caused it to be this way. 

I'm so thankful for this life I live.