Thanksgiving in Hurricane

I am the oldest of 16 children. Yes, just one Mom and one Dad and they are still happily married. I was 13 when my mom had her second set of twins back to back. There were 4 babies under the age of two. That was fun I can tell you. If you talk to me about overpopulating I will tell you to get up on the news. The problem is underpopulation now. Europe is dying. Any how, my mom had an IUD when she became expectant with the second set of twins. Birth control just didn't work that well for her. Thankfully she and my Dad welcomed every child they had and felt blessed. I got good practice being a second mom. So when people say to me "wow you have 8 children", I just say "you have no idea" or "it's nothing really".

This is a long way of saying that Thanksgiving is really interesting at my parents house/farm. I only had two brothers and one sister that weren't there with their families. The rest of us were there. It was total chaos and I loved every minute of it.

We came a day early to avoid a blizzard that was hitting our area. It gave us a little snow the next morning which is not common where I grew up. I thought I would take some pictures of it. My parents live up on a hill so there are lots of cool views all around.

And there he goes to do his morning chores. My dad is a trooper.

By mid morning the snow was gone and the boys were cleaning up.

Stuart, Dad and Adam

Tyson 

Lincoln and Adam 

This is a turkey hen. My mother said she disappeared for about six months and then she found her sitting on a bunch of bad eggs. The hen refused to get off her nest and just hissed at my mother when she got close, so my mother being the compassionate person she is, took some chicken eggs and traded her. They hatched out and now this turkey is the mother of 4 cute little baby chicks in November.

We started a new tradition this year. We have a soup and pie dinner the night before Thanksgiving. There was lots of soup left over

We invited all the extended relatives. This was only a few of them

With 81 people coming for Thanksgiving dinner we needed a bigger place and went into my grandmother's house that was big enough to accommodate us all.

Joseph loves to hug Grandpa and Grandma at the same time

My dad raised a pig for us and so we spent the day after Thanksgiving cutting it up and packaging it. My brothers are building a meat room for this purpose but it wasn't ready yet so we did it out in the  fresh air.
Mmm... theres nothing like fresh pig for dinner and teaching your kids about the real world

Dad had the grandkids glean the corn field to mix it with the silage for the cows.

This is the inside of my Mom's bathroom door frame. For years it has been a height marker for the grandkids and neighbor kids who spend time there.

Not only did my parents have 16 kids but they have provided a home for a number of unrelated boys. This is Tim. He came to live with my parents when he was about sixteen. Tomorrow he is headed off to Afghanistan for 14 months. His job will be to blow up road side bombs in big tanks and to sweep areas on foot looking for trip wire. Tim loves a thrill. WAY to much.

The Crew

Farmers, Hunters, and Video Gamers.

Gotta love em.

John, Josh and Jarem 

Kate and Hannah

Hurricane - Juan Diego State Championship Football Game, 2010

I had to post these pictures of my alma mater's state championship game. I still have a little brother in high school and sometimes he brings his friends up to stay with us or my kids hang out with them when we go to Hurricane and so the point is that we knew some of the players. I've never seen such a sad game in my life. This was Hurricane's year to beat Juan Diego. They had played them for the championship the last two years in a row and lost. This year their team was bigger and better than ever. Like last year it came down to the final 3 seconds. The score was tied and with 3 seconds to go, Juan Diego kicked a field goal and won the game.

Most of Hurricane was there for the game. Juan Diego had half the fans

Kelly, Troy (my cousin) and Todd- I would have sat by them but didn't want to destroy their man time

Devastated Seniors- Goma (70) is OK though- he's going to the Utes

One sad fan

Cute Krista 

Abby, Krista and one sad fan

Last Mom's Photo Shoot- Amy's Studio

We did a Studio shoot for our last photo shoot of the year. I thought it was totally fun but we did it late at night so it was hard on the little ones. Amy had lots of fun props. I decided to play around with some of my light room presets. Some I like, some I don't.

I told Megan to dress outrageously and she came up with everything stripes

These last three were taken by my friend, and fellow photographer, Amy Johnson

Family Photo Shoots

These are a few of the family photo shoots I have done this year.

The Chadwick Family

The Peterson Family

The Nichols Family

The Jarema Family

Marci's Senior Pictures

The Bryce Family