Feats of Strength in Yellowland

Max, Breezy, and Blake were able to come visit for Thanksgiving! We were sitting around the table chatting after they first rolled in when Max calmly stated that he was the fastest Johnson on land. Blake and I were unwilling to let that stand, so we went and had a race down the middle of the street at 10pm. Blake outright cheated, and we decided sprinting in the dark was too scary, so the fastest on land title is still undecided. Afterwards our feats of strength included clap push ups, finger jousting, and various forms of stick wrestling. It was unlike us but very amusing!

Max and Blake very intensely trying to not let go of the stick. 

A scene from Thanksgiving morning: Breezy entertaining the kids with her collection of rings, Elliot and Max solving some math mobile puzzles, and Aaron fixing Breezy's laptop.

Best of all: Blake doing most of the feast prep! I helped and did all the grocery shopping, but he was definitely the mastermind behind everything. We had bacon wrapped turkey, savory stuffing, creamed corn, honey habanero rolls, and bacon mac and cheese. He dubbed it "the year I add spice to Thanksgiving." Everything was sooo good, and we were able to eat it for days.

Poor Annie was sick. She fell asleep, but I woke her up for feast time. She was pretty out of it and hardly ate anything. 

Sick Annie + Blake's hate = major vibes

Here's one of the many videos I took of the odes to Yellowland! Yellowland is the area of the backyard with yellow leaves from the peach and pomegranate tree. I love it when Max and Blake do their synchronized improv singing. Annie has been watching the videos over and over, and Elliot keeps making Yellowland references. We also played the game where we make up a Yellowland story where each person says one word as we go around the circle. Elliot played but added quite a lot of chaos by saying some form of "explodes" every time it was his turn. Despite that, we soon had an impressive amount of lore concerning the king and his crocodile horse captain, Sulfurious. 

Blake went on a walk around the lake with us the next day while Breezy and Max did homework/work. More feats of strength were demonstrated. I remember the glory days when I could wrestle little Blakey and win. Now he's all grown up and doing pull ups. But not as many as Aaron, the family jock.

Elliot modeling by some awesome yellow leaves by the lake. A Yellowland colony perhaps?

Max stayed a couple days longer than Breezy and Blake. He got to read Isaac this book a thousand times and eat our agave stick in the back yard. It was a dried agave stalk that had been in our yard for over a year. He said, "hmm, I wonder if this agave stick tastes like agave" and ripped off a bit and started chewing on it. Before long we were all chewing on stick bits and it actually did taste really good! He brought most of his custom games too which I always love. 

We certainly have a lot to be thankful for this year. We were able to spend lots of time with our family and friends and the people we love. All of us are learning and growing, and we have a happy household over here.