Thanksgiving is always such a busy day, but I guess it could be even busier. I'm glad that I only have to cook a little bit in order to get ready for the festivities! Al and I made our much-loved sweet potatoes, which are really like dessert. We also brought pumpkin chocolate chip cookies with almond cream cheese icing, vanilla almond truffles, peanut brittle, and cranberry sauce--everything homemade, I'll have you know. We started shopping and getting things ready on Monday, so by my day off on Wednesday, I didn't have a ton left to do.
Thursday morning, we woke up at about 7am to be at the annual Chili's Turkey Bowl, a flag football game that has been going on for about nine years now. Al was excited to play because he's been going to the gym and is in the best shape for any Turkey Bowl thus far. Then, the weather was gorgeous! I'm usually in two shirts, a hoodie, a coat, and a blanket, and I'm still freezing. This year, I was in a t-shirt and hoodie and was perfectly comfortable. Unfortunately, Al hurt his back while working on the sprinkler system a week ago and wasn't in peak performance mode. He did get in to play a little bit. Meanwhile, me and the two dogs and Valerie and her one dog were on the sidelines visiting and trying to keep the animals under control. Trillian decided to pick up an old game she hasn't played since she was about five months old--dog-leash-tug-of-war. She nearly chewed a hole through her leash. Then Thursday picked up on the idea, too. One of Al's employees brought her family and kids love Thursday, so for a while, I had a pretty decent dog-sitter for one dog. (Actually, they loved Trillian, too, but I'm pretty sure any one of them and Trill weigh roughly the same and since Trillian can drag me around...)
Since we just keep right on going after the game, we'd made a list of everything we needed to throw in the car that morning. We managed to not forget anything! We left the game just before 10am, after the Harrisville/Riverdale team had beat Layton twice. The dogs got dropped off at Al's mom's house and we took all the food over to my mom's. Then we turned around and headed back to Al's mom's, but stopped on the way to pick up a couple of white peppermint mochas and the annual christmas ornaments at Starbucks.
We watched some TV and ate Thanksgiving chili and cornbread while having a nice time visiting. Trillian and Thursday ran around with the neighbors' two Jack Russells in the back yard.
At about 2:00, it was time to head over to my mom's for the annual Thanksgiving Extravaganza. Along with our contributions, Ashley debuted her green bean casserole that is simple-but-delicious, Christy brought three wonderful pies, mom made an amazing turkey, as well as the yummy cranberry salad and various vegetables. It was fabulous! I am very grateful to have such an amazing family on both sides, and to live in a country where I can enjoy the luxuries of plenty of food, warm shelter, and so much more. I'm also grateful that even though I wasn't born into this situation, my birth mother was selfless enough to place me into it. I don't know who she is, but every so often, I find myself sending warm-fuzzy-vibes her way because by making one extremely difficult decision, she provided me with so much. (I'm also very grateful that my parents wanted another kid after Jeremy, and I'm sorry I kept wandering off.)
After picking up the dogs, Al and I returned home at about 8:30. I was thankful that I didn't have to go anywhere today, so I am trying to get some of the living-mess cleaned up--you know, those areas that just accumulate stuff because they're where we tend to drop things as a habit? I'm also trying to get some reading done. I currently have four books going... but one I've read before. I feel like I've been so busy lately that I don't really have time to read! It's nice to lay in bed with the dogs and just sink into a good book.
Al was not so fortunate as to have today off. He got to open today and most likely got to deal with a few bruised and battered Black Friday refugees (a crazy tradition in gladiator-style that I have no intention of ever participating in). I know he's looking forward to leftovers when he comes home. I'm pretty sure that we came home with more food than we left with!
So this was a taste of the fun that is to come in just three short weeks! I'm so excited to have everyone coming for Christmas again! I know it's probably a total pain for Ash, Dave, Jill, and Jer to do Christmas away from your own homes, but I love, love, love the idea of everyone being in the same place for the holidays! Thanks for taking the time and money to travel out here to be with us!
And Al would like everyone to know that he would like a pony for Christmas. Mark your lists.
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3 comments:
Your family always seemed like so much fun and so loving too. I was always so jealous that you got to go home on the weekends and to what sounded like so much fun too. Glad that you and yours had a wonderful Thanksgiving. I'll keep the pony in mind.
Ang,
I LOVED reading all about Thanksgiving at Mom's. I missed being with everyone and I loved getting the "play-by-play" from you. I can always count on you for that. Our Thanksgiving was fun, even though we were still half in boxes... oh wait, we still are... but I missed everyone and the feeling of just being together. We are SO looking forward to coming out. It really wouldn't be the same without being there with everyone. We LOVE Christmas there with you all. It makes Christmas so special. We all love being in Utah for Christmas, but it is especially fun for the boys. Utah is a magical land where all our favorite people live and it SNOWS!!! Even though we just moved into our first home and I LOVE it, I don't have any desire to be here Christmas morning. We have had our "own" Christmas's before, and they were fun, but something very big was missing. It just wasn't the same. We are counting down the days. Did you know we are going to be there from the 20th (late) to the 4th??? Can't wait!
You could never count the times I have wanted to thank your birth mom and Jeremy's! (Especially on your birthdays) How would I even go about thanking them for giving up their children so that I (and my family) could be so blessed and so happy!! I just hope that they can feel assured somehow, that their children turned out so wonderfully, that they are so loved and that our family just wouldn't be "our family" without every single one of us!!
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