Veterans Day and Parents' Visits

I know I am a week late, but my mom has been in town and we have been super busy!  I am going to back up to last Wednesday because it was Veterans Day, and that day is obviously pretty important to our family.  I explained to my 3rd graders a little bit about Veterans Day and we decided that they could write letters to a soldier in Iraq.  I happen to know one fairly well since my brother-in-law, BJ, is there right now.  I also agreed to let them write a letter to Craig, since what he does in the Army here in Utah is different than BJ in Iraq.  All I have to say is that BJ is going to have a great time reading these letters, and I am sure he will have a great laugh.  Craig and I have admired their great drawings, as well as their questions.  Here are a couple of excerpts:
"Do you like living in a tiny room?  My room is tiny and I hate it."
"Thank you for serving our country, have you been ambushed?"
"Have you been shot?  Not killed, but just maybe hurt?"
The list goes on, but for as many funny ones I had, I had just as many that were very sweet and appreciative.  My kids loved writing the letters, and Craig is going to come up and talk to them next week to answer some of their questions.

My mom got here on Friday to visit for a few days.  Our families are all over the country, but Craig and I are staying here for the holidays, so mom came to hang out.  We had our first blizzard of the year on Saturday, and mom got to be right in the middle of it!  It was really cool, and here is our yard (and our leftover Halloween pumpkins):

We also went to the Utah Olympic Park in Park City.  They have a really cool Olympics museum and here is mom holding the torch from the 2002 Winter Olympics:

We also went to the State Capitol, which they just finished remodeling in 2008.

Mom went home today, but we had a really good visit.  We also went to the Dinosaur Museum in Thanksgiving Point, shopped in Park City, and ate at some fun places. 

A couple of weeks ago, Craig's parents drove all the way from Kentucky to visit us for a few days.  I had to work, but we got a lot of things done and we had a great time while they were here.  Scout became Susan's new best friend, and she LOVED going on walks with my wonderful new mother-in-law.  We went to Kennicott Copper Mine, Park City, the State Capitol, the LDS Temple Square, and still managed to carve some pumpkins. 

We had two really great visits with our parents in town.  It was so nice to have them around.  We are both so lucky to have wonderful parents and we are so thankful that they took time out of their busy schedules to come out here in the cold and visit us.  As far as the holidays, it will be our first Thanksgiving as a married couple and it will be just us!  We are planning on volunteering our time, hopefully serving some of the homeless families in Utah on Thanksgiving Day.  I am sure we will manage to eat some turkey in there somewhere also!  Until then, I only have the kids for 3 more days, and then I get 3 days off.  Woohoo!