Happy ThAnKsMaS!

(Left to Right: Matthew, Laura, Kristy, Dan, Kim, Heather, Tanner, Kenzie)

Happy Thanksgiving/Christmas at the Nordstrom's!
Tanner & I made the scary drive from Provo to Redding in a whole 14 hours. We saw every semi-truck pulled off putting on chains and about 9 slide-off accidents. Glad we made it safe thanks to my husband's good driving skills!!
Although the boys moaned and groaned about it, we took family pictures finally! YAY!

After the amazing Thanksgiving feast, it is a Nordstrom tradition to drive up to Lassen National Park and cut down Christmas Trees! Uncle Keith, Aunt Candace, the Nordstrom clan and Travis and Jennifer joined us this year and we cut down a total of four trees. I think we may have left a bare patch in the forest!
The snow as about 3 feet deep and our puppy Sadie had a blast pouncing around the white powder!

I, of course, did not bring snow pants and was soaking wet from the knees down. Who cares though! I picked out my first real tree for Tanner to cut down and bring all the way home!

Since all the kids were in town for Thanksgiving, we decided to do a Thanksgiving/Christmas combo because Dan could not come home from Afganistan for Christmas. Thanksgiving was Thursday, cutting trees and decorating was Friday and Christmas was Saturday.

Dan had roasting skewers made for all the kids by a blacksmith in Afganistan.

These are some determined faces! We had such a nice time in California with Tanner's family. We are so grateful for Dan and Kim and for the hard work they do to give us kids such a nice Holiday.