Thanksgiving at the cabin!

We just returned from a fabulous weekend in the mountains at our friends' cabin. We left Friday after school and headed to Cedar City to pick up Tara. As we were leaving St. George, we realized the heater in the Suburban wasn't working. We started worrying about going up the mountain in the cold, and decided we better see if someone at the auto parts store could help us. We added some antifreeze and bought a new radiator cap; the old one wasn't holding the seal anymore. But even after that, the heater still wasn't working. The guy at Auto Zone, Dave, told us it might just need to run awhile in order to work. We picked up Tara, put Emma and Kevin in George and Rebecca's car to stay warm, and decided to head on up the mountain. We hadn't gotten very far when Craig realized the battery gauge was registering VERY low and the headlights were beginning to flicker. We quickly pulled over, told Rebecca and George that we needed to turn around, and started back down the mountain into Cedar. By this time, the Auto Zone was closed so we went to Wal-Mart to see if they could test the battery. At this point I must mention that we brought Freeway the Dog on the trip. (Tiny little Chihuahua in the cold!) The whole thing was a new, scary experience for him!!! We all went into Wal-Mart to stay warm while Craig checked out the battery. Emma, Kevin and I were looking at toys when Craig came to find me to tell me the bad news. Our battery was fine, but the alternator was registering low. There was no way we could go anywhere without first getting it repaired or replaced. We stood there in the toy aisle wondering what to do. We contemplated calling Kristina or the Sargents who both live in Cedar, but it was late and there were 9 of us, so we ended up at a hotel.

We decided to get a new alternator from Auto Zone in the morning, try to fix the Suburban ourselves and then figure out whether to continue the vacation or go home. The thing I must mention here is that we just didn't want to spend the money on two hotel rooms. But that's a whole different story. Tara went back to her dorm room for the night (which I still feel terrible about) and we settled in and had family prayer and went to bed. Craig and I were both praying like crazy that we would just be able to fix the Suburban without too much expense, even if that meant having to go home. We were willing to do anything the Lord wanted us to do. After a fitful nights sleep, we awoke early and Craig went to Auto Zone as soon as they opened. To my surprise, he returned while we were eating breakfast. The guys at Auto Zone checked the battery--perfect; the alternator--perfect. The only thing they found was a valve that was closed that should have been opened for the heat. Everything was working as it should, even the heater. Nothing was wrong at all! We were just dumbfounded and extremely humbled at the power of prayer. It was a total testimony to me that the Lord really does know our needs even before we ask. We had a brief family council and decided to start up the mountain again and if everything went well, we'd finish our vacation. If not we would go home. While driving up the mountain, we saw a dead deer on the side of the road, and encountered several snowy, slick patches of road. We realized that these spots would have been very slick at night, maybe even black ice. Once again we were humbled to realize that Heavenly Father had shown us his tender mercies by keeping us off that mountain at night. I feel confident that something bad might have happened had we ignored the warnings we received the night before. The hotel money we were worried about was nothing in comparison to hospital bills or worse had we hit a deer or black ice. We feel truly blessed as a result of this experience and I had to write it down more for me than anyone else. I just don't want to forget about it. Later that day, a Primary song popped into my head:
I thank thee, dear Father, in heaven above
For thy goodness and mercy; thy kindness and love.
I thank thee for home, friends, and parents so dear,
And for every blessing that I enjoy here.
It still makes me want to cry just thinking about it. So that's enough of that and on to the fun stuff.
We thought it would be fun to have our Thanksgiving dinner at the cabin. It worked out great for Rebecca and George, too, because now they won't have to worry about which family's house to go to. (Besides, we want to do the buffet again this year!) We had all the fixin's except for turkey; they were still too expensive. We had roasted chickens instead. It was really yummy!

We played lots of fun games: The Settlers of Zarahemla, Chess, Checkers, Apples to Apples, Scrabble, Sorry, and Cranium Family Fun (which I highly recommend!!!). It was a blast!

We watched movies and ate junk and went for walks and ate junk and took naps and ate junk. For some reason we are always eating at the cabin. Go figure!
It snowed a bit on Saturday and Sunday. It was enough that the kids had a snowball fight and Logan and George built a snowman with a pine needle Mohawk. Cute! It sure made everything beautiful.

The branch at Panguitch Lake only holds meetings during the summer, so we just held a family home evening on Sunday. I took the lesson from an article in the September 2008 Ensign titled "The Power of Diligent Learning." I felt it was appropriate considering our recent experiences.

On Sunday afternoon, Rebecca, George, and Tara had to leave; Tara had school on Monday and Rebecca and George had to work. I kind of kicked them out at about 2:30. I was worried about the weather and the roads. And for good reason...they had snow packed roads and hard rain almost all the way home. We were relieved to hear from them that they made it home safely.
Craig took so many pictures that I had a hard time picking which ones to post. Sorry if I posted too many. I just wanted you to get an idea of how we spent our fabulous weekend!

And by the way, Freeway had so much fun sniffing and running free outside. I think he's had the hardest time of all coming home to real life!