Thanksgiving!

Thanksgiving break went great! Here's a run down:

Wednesday morning my sister and I went to HEB and bought the rest of what we needed for Thanksgiving dinner, and then got right to cooking and prepping at her place. When Joe got off work at noon, we all grabbed some lunch and then finished up making desserts. Joe and I finished cleaning up and doing laundry at the house and my parents came in from Dallas that night.

Getting food all ready on Thursday went really well, and we actually got ahead of schedule putting things in the oven! Joe was very nice to wake up early and help first thing in the morning. Everyone had some contribution! My mom also put up some curtains she had bought for our living room. Joe's parents and Emily (his sister) and Rabi drove all the way from the other side of Houston (Pasadena / League City) to join us for the meal and then made another trek home. I think they spent more time on the road than in College Station, so that was very nice of them to make that sacrifice to share Thanksgiving with us. Jerrell (did I spell that right?) is a good friend of my sister and her husband who lives in town, and he joined us, too. One person had to sit on an ice chest, but we all sat together and ate. And ate ;). (The six desserts were probably overkill.)

some of us in the living room

PART of the yummy spread

My sister (Lauren) wanted to do Black Friday shopping but her partner in crime the last few years was out of town this year. Mom and I were the new recruits.

Lauren scheming

See that paper and pen? She went through all the ads, wrote down the time each store opened and what she wanted to get from each store (things like a 2 GB SD card (for a camera) for $6.99). From this list, she developed her battle plan. (I guess I can't talk much... I had a list of everything that needed to be cooked including what times each item needed to be prepped, baked and finished.) My mom and I missed her first wave of stores - I think she hit two before we woke up at 4:40, threw on clothes and joined her at #3. By 7:45 we each had $10 mall gift cards, $5 Half Price Books gift cards, and a serious need for sleep (maybe we should have got to bed before 1:30am?).

We went back home and and to sleep for a little while. That afternoon the Aggie game (vs. tu) started at 2:30. So what were we doing? Joe and I watched Enchanted and my mom watched August Rush at the movie theater! Both were very good movies. We got to see the entire last half of the football game, too. Kevin (my sister's husband) works at Toys R Us and had to be there at 4am, so he slept a lot of the afternoon (this is a hard season to work there - especially since he's a supervisor and has to deal with returns and rude customers).

My parents left Saturday before noon, and we spent (almost) the rest of the rainy day watching movies (Ocean's 13 and Hairspray) and episodes from last season of Heroes.

So that was our Thanksgiving! I hope yours went well, too!