Another Great Trip to the Ryan House

William, Jacob, and Spencer had the entire week of Thanksgiving off from school.  It was great!  Since we didn't have plans of going out of town, we decided to go to the Ryan House.  We went up Sunday and came home Wednesday afternoon.  It, as always, was wonderful!  

Bryce with Jiminy Cricket, one of the therapy dogs.  He and Annalise both love the dogs that come.  Almost makes me want to get a therapy dog for them...almost!

Annalise in the sensory room.  This thing has pictures that are projected onto a mat on the floor.  When you walk over it or brush the pictures with your hands the top picture "moves" or changes and you can see what is under it.  This is by far one of the favorite things here at the house.

Pretty girl

silly girl

Our high healed viking!  The boys love the dress up clothes.  It cracks me up.

Annalise loves her cookies.  The volunteers often make cookies or something yummy for the kids.

Monday John had to work so the older boys and I went to Walmart to get some food for the days we would be there.  In the Walmart parking lot there was a Mandarin buffet place that was having their grand opening.  We decided to go there for lunch.  It was super yummy.  William even tried the octopus and stuffed mushrooms.  He loved the mushrooms, but said that the sauce on the octopus was too spicy.

Then Tuesday, John and I took the older boys to the Children's Museum of Phoenix.  We rode the light rail to get there which was a first for all of us.  The boys thought that was great.

building a fort

They had a few different crafts.  Here the boys are making paper turkeys.

Spencer working on a drumstick hat.

I think the hat is hilarious, but what a cute boy that Spencer is!

They played a little bit more, but by noon they were ready to leave.  I think they have out grown this place a bit.  Most of the things seem to be geared more toward preschool/kindergarten aged kids.  We decided that we will try the Science Center next time. There were also a bunch of people here.  There were a couple of school classes there as well.

After looking at the prices of the food in the museum, we decide to walk around and see if we could find a restaurant on the way to the light rail.  We found a little pizza place and had lunch there.

On the way to the light rail, we came across these metal figures and the boys had to get some pictures with them.  

Then it was back to the Ryan house for some arts and crafts, Wii, games, and of course swimming!

Annalise had so much fun and was not happy with me when I took her out to get ready for bed.  She was in there for almost an hour.

William was not happy about the fact that he was not able to swim.  Hopefully his cast will come off this Wednesday so that he will be able to swim next time we are there.

We had a great time playing and relaxing at the Ryan House.  I finished the book I have been reading for months and slept through the night 3 nights in a row.  It was wonderful.  

The people at the Ryan house have done so much for us that I would like to do something for them.  We will be going back there for a couple of days before Christmas.  I have decided to collect items from their wish list and take them with us when we go.  If you would like to donate any items, just let me know and I will add them to our gift bag!  In addition to the things listed on their wish list, they have told me that they like when people donate snack type things for the kids, things like fruit snacks, granola bars, brownie or cookie mixes, etc.  I know a lot of those things can be bought for next to nothing with coupons. Hopefully we will have a nice big gift bag to give them for Christmas!

Thanksgiving 2011

Thanksgiving day this year was a little odd.  I guess that is the best way to describe it.  Since I hadn't gotten a turkey before we left for the Ryan House, I went out to get one after dropping Jacob off at Cub Scouts Wednesday evening.  Annalise and I went to Fry's, but they were out of the fresh Turkeys.  They said that they had some at their other store, so I picked Jacob up from Cubs, and grabbed dinner for everyone at Taco Bell.  After dinner, I sent John out to get the turkey while I cleaned up and got everyone ready for bed.

Then Thanksgiving morning I walked out to see this:

Since we keep this car in the garage and neither John and I had hit anything, we figure someone must have hit the car while it was parked in one of the Fry's parking lots.  This is annoying anyway that someone would do this much damage and not leave a note or anything, but it's extra annoying because we have realized that we need to sell this car (that story will come soon) and this lovely dent is not going to help us do that!  Grrr!

So that had kind of put me in a stinky mood, but more than that I was feeling kind of sad this whole day.  I couldn't really put my finger on it, but I just wasn't feeling very happy although I knew it was Thanksgiving day and there are many things that I am thankful for.  I just couldn't shake it.  As I thought more about it, I realized that there were a few things on my mind.  First of all, I was really homesick for family.  This year, it was just our immediate family that would be here.  I don't love cooking and to cook an entire Thanksgiving meal for just our family is a bit much.  Luckily John was going to fry the turkey, so at least I didn't have to worry about that.

Another thing that was making me sad was thinking of all the friends that are spending their first Thanksgiving without their spouse or child.  A friend who has lost her husband leaving her and their 5 young children, a long time  friend who has lost his wife...who was once a college roommate of mine...leaving him here with their 6 young children, a wonderful family who suddenly lost their only daughter, a granddaughter of our bishop, who was only 2 yrs old, multiple children who have lost their battles with Leukodystrophy, and Paloma's family who said goodbye to her at the Ryan house just 2 days before Thanksgiving.  Other than Connie, I didn't really know these families well, but my heart still ached for them knowing the loneliness they are feeling.   Most have said goodbye within this month.

I also realized that my mind had been pondering on how quickly things have changed in our family and how over the past few years I have, in a sense, grown to fear November.  Looking back at this time over the past few years, it amazes me that it was just three years ago that we were in the hospital with a 22 month old Bryce wondering if he would live to see his 2nd birthday, then the following year when I wrote of a  bittersweet moment I had while watching my two little ones, and then just one year ago when we noticed that things weren't quite right with Annalise and had to begin to accept the fact that she too would suffer from the mysterious disease that had attacked Bryce's little body.  Last Thanksgiving Bryce and I spent the day in the hospital following his hip surgery.

Once I realized and accepted that these things were bothering me, it was a little easier to work past them and move on to the rest of our day which actually turned out quite nice.

John decided to fry the turkey this year.

This is the turkey that kept John company as he cooked our turkey.

The turkey turned out great!  John had to cut the wings off in order for it to fit into the pot, and it took a bit longer to cook then we had thought it would, but in the end...it was delicious!

William introduced Annalise to the "olives on the fingers" ritual they all enjoy.

She seemed to like having them on her fingers.  She didn't eat any of them, actually she didn't eat much of anything, but she had fun playing.  She mostly enjoyed licking the peanut butter off of her roll.

Overall, it turned out to be a nice, quiet day.  It was nice to reflect on all of the things we are thankful for at this time.  I am so thankful that our family was together this year and that everyone was healthy!