First is Thanksyodermas. ( I just made that up. Brilliant, no?) Mark's folks, who live 45 minutes away in Hurricane, decided that to simplify the holidays, they wouldn't ask anyone over for Thanksgiving or Christmas, but rather have a big Yoder weekend in-between the two. (It's like having a third major holiday to have to prepare for! Yay.....) They have 10 kids and a lot of them are within driving distance. So we headed down on December 8th, and in typical Yoder fashion, this is what we did:
We had a Chinese FEAST.
Mark's grandpa immigrated from China to San Francisco in the 1920s and had his own Chinese restaurant. Even though the Yoder kids are more German/Scottish than Chinese, they still brag about that 1/4 of their heritage and love the food.
Mark had volunteered us to make the egg rolls, so we showed up two hours early and cranked out 90 of them (we'd made the filling the night before) and I was in charge of frying them. In the meantime, the others also made
sweet and sour chicken, sesame chicken, mugu gai pan
and copycat PF Chang lettuce wraps. Frank had picked up the giant fried shrimp and rice from the local Chinese buffet, but everything else was from scratch!
As if that wasn't enough, this was dessert! Krispy Cremes, brownies, Chinese almond cookies, killer chocolate cake, bundt cake, pumpkin cookies, fortune cookies and a berry cheesecake. *burp*
Yep, the Yoders know how to do lunch.
My kids are experienced egg roll eaters.
This is Madelyn's cousin Autumn, who wore a crazy wig to the occasion.
As soon as we were done eating, the boys sat down to play hearts for a few hours.
My nephews booted up the Wii and played some dance games
It was super loud in the house, but I managed to put Luke down for a nap. He probably was in a food coma.
I left to go get a breath of fresh air and cruised around downtown Hurricane, which takes about two minutes. I went to Ace Hardware, the dollar store and the grocery store, which is about as exciting as it gets! Hasn't changed much since I was a kid....
When I came back a couple hours later, everyone was doing the exact thing they'd been doing when I left. Luke woke up and joined in the dancing. His cousins were shocked that he didn't have his pants on.
I'm shocked when he DOES have his pants on.
Grandpa Frank did "Going on a bear hunt" with my nephews
Said a few words and we watched a Christmas video, then had some pictures.
l-r: Sheila, Sally, Rose, me, Nikki, Kathy and Maria
l-r: John, Cove, Alex, Mike, Luke, Noah, Tre, Paul, Mark, Jake, David, Frank Jr., Frank Sr. and Will
PS. If the entire extended family had been there, there would have been another 33 people.
PS. If the entire extended family had been there, there would have been another 33 people.
Madelyn and Autumn had sneaked off to the park nearby, and even though it was dark we had to drag them back to the car.
Luke watched his DVD player in the car for a while, but I think both kids took a nap on the way home. It was a busy, long day!
I had Mark drive through Main Street in Cedar City so we could see the new lights the city had put up. It was very festive looking.
Looking at this picture makes me wistful, because there wasn't any snow yet. Since then we have been buried in snow and perma-freeze. But those posts are yet to come!
2 comments:
What? I'm more German/Scottish than Chinese? Blasphemy!
The food looks so yummy in this post! I love all the quilts at your in-laws' house. She should come back to the Guild!
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