Thanks Giving

Happy December, Everyone! We had a WONDERFUL Thanksgiving break, I hope you did as well.

Last week at work was CRAZY, I thought that since it was a holiday week that no one would be calling for help on their websites. What I didn't realize is that practically EVERY customer would want help with their site and their stores, since a lot of people apparently do shopping over the Thanksgiving holiday. Has to do with some big deal called "Christmas," apparently. We were some of those wild and crazy shoppers, but please, one thing at a time!

Thursday was McNeil day. We went to Tracie's parents and had a Thanksgiving feast, all the staples done to perfection, right down to Tracie's homemade cranberry sauce.

We played games, sang karaoke (tolerably well) and visited with family. Notably, Tracie's brother Troy and his family surprised everyone and showed up from California to celebrate Thanksgiving with us, giving us something more to be thankful for. It was great seeing Troy and Jen, as well as my world's most adorable nephew Eric and beautiful niece Madeleine (tied of course with Carly, Wesley, Seth, Cade, Leah, Matthew, Tyson, Preston, Mason and Lily). After letting the food digest for awhile and naps all around, we gathered again, this time for pie. Pumpkin, Pecan, Pumpkin Pecan, Pumpkin Cheesecake, Chocolate, Chocolate Silk, Chocolate Brownie, Chocolate Banana, Banana Cream, Cherry, Apple, Lemon pies to be exact. (Am I forgetting any? probably. Just know there were a lot) after the feast, both edible and social, Tracie and I limped/rolled home.

Thursday night I stayed up so I could take part in the madness of Black Friday. At 4 am I joined the throngs of penny pinchers at Kohl's and bought $250 7-piece luggage set for $50, a $40 blanket for $8, a $40 picture collage frame for $10 and other miscellaneous goodies. Though there were more people in Kohl's than there probably ever have been (albeit that location IS pretty new) I was impressed at the organization. Two very long lines filled the aisles and employees told customers jokes and gave us candy if we got Christmas trivia right while we waited. After 10 minutes of shopping and 45 minutes of waiting in line, I came home for Tracie and we made way to Wal-mart. I can sum up our visit to Wal-mart in one word: Chaos. As tragic as it was, I can believe that some people died at Wal-marts across the country (and at least one in Utah) because there were so many many people everywhere you turned. We didn't find anything we wanted for the prices we wanted at Wal-mart, the only redeeming fact was Tracie got a cute hoodie for $8, and we didn't get trampled.

We got home with all our booty, did some shopping on Amazon while their Black Fri. specials were still on, and passed out until about 1, when we went back to Tracie's parents for her dad's Turkey soup and pie leftovers. We again played games and enjoyed time with family.

Saturday we had another Thanksgiving feast, this time at my grandparents. We got to meet a new member of the extended family, my cousin Sara's baby girl Shayla (I hope I'm spelling that right) is 3 months and just beautiful. My Grandpa makes the best turkey on the planet, and this year he didn't disappoint, he even went one step further and let us keep some of the turkey!

Sunday, the last day of our vacation, was highlighted by home teachers and home teaching (last day of the month, after all) going to Uncle Jim's house and Uncle Paul's house (it's Uncle Paul's 81st birthday!) as well as Ammon's birthday, but since he's in Singapore, his birthday was technically the day before, or at least 15 hours later than us. I told him they should have flown to Texas on his birthday, then he wouldn't age, but he said that was stupid.

We greatly enjoyed our Thanksgiving holiday, as you can see, and are already chomping at the proverbial bit (it's really more of a kimberwicke) to celebrate our Christmas holiday in Texas!