THANKSgiving 2007

whoooooooooooooo I need a nap.....

Where to begin.....

Thursday - Thanksgiving - We woke up in the morning and worked on getting the boys ready as well as last minute cleanup for the Q Collectives visit. We attempted to get to the in-laws at Noon, but it was more like 12:30 before we got there and we were the first one's there. At this point I just try to find a place to stay out of the way. I am there to help, but I figure one less person in the kitchen the better. The boys were having fun running around the house and were behaving themselves so I didn't have to worry about chasing them this year. Slowly people start showing up to lunch and I sit and watch the football game and visit with some of the relatives occasionally venturing into the kitchen for a snack. I am sitting there watching TV when "the brat" shows up. If you don't recall from last year this little spawn of satin made thanksgiving stressful for me last year. Jen and I just kinda looked at each when he showed up and had a little bit of a laugh. Overall the food was delicious. The turkey was the most tender, mouth watering turkey that I had had in years. Everything else was very tasty... almost. My mother-in-law has serious gravy issues. She just cannot make a good gravy. Usually she just can't get it to thicken, but this year I don't know what happened but it was pretty bad. Of course I find this out after dousing my mashed potatoes and turkey in it, Crap. So I am sitting there and eating when I see the kids go running outside with my son running up to me asking to go outside. I tell him we will go out in a minute as soon as I finish eating my meal. He then of course goes out into the garage and I see him a minute later running outside. Darn Kid, but luckily I was almost finished. So I grab my coat and head outside so I don't leave him alone with the "brat". The Brat and brother and sister climb up this pretty steep hill outside the in-laws house to play, but I decided not to let William go up there since I know there are hidden tree stumps and other stuff underneath the fallen leaves. I decided again to ignore the brat, and much to my surprise the brat's sister started talking to me and was a very nice little girl. She wanted to help out with Andrew when he came out too. Actually she wanted to carry him around but he is much to heavy for that to happen. So I ran around with the kids while the brat was at the top of the hill and everything was right with the world. That's the way the afternoon pretty much ended. We came back inside for dessert and more football. Around 6:00 we packed the family up and headed for the Rehab hospital at Lutheran to visit my mom who is still recovering from her back surgery. (She is doing pretty good and scheduled to come home this Friday.) After visiting for a while the boys were getting cranky so we decided to head for home. Just before I left my mom we talked about a couple of things that we saw in the Target ad for the black Friday sale. I usually avoid the stores all weekend, but I decided that if I happened to wake up that I would give the black Friday shopping experience a try. I had no clue. I ended up actually setting my alarm to get up. After we got home we were kind of settling in, but we knew the Q's were on the way to the house. Around 8:00 or so they finally arrived. Let the fun begin. All of the kids were having a blast running all over the house and playing with each other. The adults sat around the table visiting in the middle of the carnage. We finally started putting kids to bed around 10:30pm or so (way past bedtime). Last year Keith and Mary slept in the pull out couch downstairs but this year Keith found the room a little too scary so Mary got the room to herself. John, Carrie, and Izzy got a roommate. After putting the kids to bed we ended up sitting around and eating and drinking till at least 1:30am which was probably not a good idea since I was planning on getting up at 5:30am, but hey it's an experience. Next.... Black Friday....