A Very Vegas Thanksgiving

This was my first year heading down to Las Vegas as part of the Polley-Walton-Redford-Thompson Thanksgiving party. It's an every other yearly tradition for Amy's family to go down to stay in Vegas and celebrate the holiday with her mom's side of the family.

Between Amy's family and my connections with the Redford side, I knew that I was going to really enjoy the weekend. I wanted to get a lot of video of the weekend, but as it turns out, I messed up the two time-lapse footage that I was going to use and just quit trying in frustration after that. Turns out, not even Amy really does much photo-documenting during the weekend. There would have been a lot of fun videos to capture, but so it goes.

Anyway, so here are a few brief highlights from the weekend:

• 55 people staying in two houses next door to each other. The Redfords and most of the Thompsons in the neighbor's house, and the Waltons, Polleys, and a few Thompsons in the Polley home. Amy and I were lucky enough to get put into an office with glass doors, but more importantly, also houses two main computers which everyone likes using, so we didn't really have a private space. It was fine for most of the weekend, except for when I started to get sick at the end and just wanted a place to lay my weary head.
• Visit to Grandma and Grandpa Polley's graves. I have had very little interaction with Jim Polley prior to this weekend, but I was really impressed with him. We arrived at the cemetery with the entire family (including family dog) in tow. It was a nice Fall evening in Vegas, as every night and day was during this trip, when he introduced us to the burial sites of his parents. "This is my mom and dad," he said, voice cracking from his obvious affection, and I think at that moment everyone felt the love that binds not only those adult children to their parents, but everyone present to each other as they continue on with this Thanksgiving reunion in their absence. It was really touching.
• Much food, many games, and many pies. Most of the family played volleyball Thanksgiving morning, which was really fun. Volleyball is not one of those sports that I think I really get into, but it turned out to be a lot of fun. There was a ping pong tournament which crowned the dark horse candidate Mark Redford as the champion. The Walton boys started off strong, but had a rough final couple of matches. One of my favorites ended up being horseshoes. It's just fun. It just is. There weren't as many board games as I would have liked, but we managed to keep ourselves occupied. 
• Probably my favorite part was getting to spend a good chunk of time with Greg. It's so funny that we each happened to marry cousins, and it's funny how close you can be to certain people and forget that until you start spending time and realize how well they know you. I just really loved that.

You know what else was funny? Teenage boy affection. I got along pretty well with the Polley twins and it's funny to me the way that boys show affection. Every time one of them would walk past me he'd hit my arm or kick my foot, but then other times be just really nice and asking personal questions. That grudging respect is funny to me.

Amy and I grabbed some sushi with some Redfords one night, and then Chinese with her family the next night. I was able to go running outside every day that I was there, which kind of surprised me that I was so motivated. While the temperatures were inviting, the terrain was boring. Ah well.

And there you have it. Sorry for no visuals, but it turned out to be a pretty great weekend.