Thanksgiving

It's my favorite holiday, and this year was kind of a year to forget.  Forget the events of the day that is.  There were many changes in our plans due to Kyle's work schedule.  Typically we go to Aspen, but since there were so many away games before and after Thanksgiving this year, Josie and I decided to stay at home with Kyle.

The plan was to arrive at my mom's house after Josie's morning nap and begin cooking.  Kyle would be joining us around 2:00 when he was off work.  I called my mom around 9:00 Thanksgiving day {insert drum roll}…she had been up all night sick!  No big deal for some people but she NEVER gets sick.  I can count on one hand how many times she's been sick in my life. Soooooo, the big question was to stick with the plan of having everyone over to her house, or to move it to our house or Kelly’s.  My mom was convinced it was food poisoning, so we decided to stick with the plan at mom’s house.  She would not be partaking in any cooking, and as it turned out, not even getting out of bed!

Josie and I arrived about 1:00 and Kel and Dan soon after.  We began cooking, and when I say began, that is literal!  NOTHING had been done in advance.  Normally we would have all done things in advance, but for whatever reason it didn’t happen this year.  So, at around 2:15 after Kyle had arrived, the turkey went in the oven, and all the sides were just getting started…Stuffing, mashed potatoes, asparagus, gravy, sweet potato casserole, and chocolate toffee pecan pie.  We all pitched in, Kel, Dan Kyle and me, trying to eat before 10:00pm.  It’s a miracle that we did eat before 10:00!  Things were done long before the turkey, so we had a bit of a foil display {see pictures}.  We were all thankful to eat around 7:15!  A friend that Kyle used to work with joined us as his wife was on-call.  It was warm, delicious, and I was EXHAUSTED!  We enjoyed pie not long after dinner and called it a night!  Friday morning came too soon.  I was still tired from the marathon cooking extravaganza we had.  I declared it pajama Friday for Josie and me.

Saturday We had plans to get our Christmas shopping done, lights on the house, tree purchased and decorated.  It all came to a halt at 10:00am when Kyle got a phone call that {bleep} was going down at work and he needed to be there.  MADDNESS was raging through me….the ONE Saturday that Kyle had off in 7 weeks….JERK!  Moving on….I put up the lights on the house…3 times.  Next year I’ll know what I’m doing.  We did manage to get a tree and decorate it.  The day wasn’t a total loss.

Overall, I am thankful for a healthy mom and all the cooking assistance she normally is, a sister who helped cook everything, a brother-in-law that mashed pot after pot of potatoes/sweet potatoes, a husband that did the turkey!!!!!  A daughter that is with us to celebrate her first turkey day and thankful next year will be much easier!