The leftovers are in the freezer, shopping is done (for this mad weekend anyway), and the lack of sleep from Black Friday shopping has been combatted with a 4 hour nap, and a good nights sleep. The family won't be showing up for Grandpa Breakfast for at least another 45 minutes so I thought I'd share a few thoughts on the weekend.
My Thanksgiving break started Wednesday morning, after a particularly busy Tuesday filled with grinchy teachers determined to force their students to stick around until the officially designated break began by imposing mandatory group presentations and/or tests that day. I wan't excited, but I got through it with the promise of a lovely weekend ahead. I had determined that I would go to the temple Wednesday morning before leaving, since I wasn't sure what time I'd have over the weekend. My head started to pound a little at the beginning of the session, but I figured it was just dehydration. Well a 2 hour session, lunch, and 3 glasses of milk latter my head was still pounding. I finally resorted to tylenol, but at that point it was futile. The migraine set in, and I laid on my couch with a pillow over my pounding eyes for the next 45 minutes or so until the nausea and pain started to subside. Leaving much later than originally planned, I drove down to my parents, with much less music than usual. The music or traffic reports I did listen to were also at a much lower volume than my typical weekly drive.
Thanksgiving day was by contrast, a fabulous day. Cooking started early in the morning, and much of the day was spent putting together all of the classics. I was in charge of the potatoes and green bean and corn casserole. Thanks again to my former roommates Jess and Kirsten, who introduced me to this twist on the classic dish! It's become a favorite in our family. We took a long break to pour over the ads for Black Friday and see if there was anything we had to have. We worked on our list, and went back to cooking. Family arrived, and we had an awesome time visiting while waiting for the turkey to finish cooking. It was an away year, so most of my siblings that are married ate with their in-laws, or did their own thing. We were lucky enough to have Dave and Maile, and two of Maile's brothers here, because her family is back in Hawaii. Dinner was fabulous, and we learned of Mike's superior veggie plating skills. The guy is an artist is any medium apparently. Often times the marrieds show up for pie afterwards, even on our away years, and this year was no exception. Out of 9 kids in our family, 8 of us were here by the end of the evening. All told we had 26 people over, and it was fabulous. What better way to celebrate a day of Thanks, than with the people I am so very grateful for.
After everyone left my mother and I reviewed all of our marks in the Black Friday ads to see if there was anything worth going out for, to stores that opened at 10pm or 12am. We determined no, and set our alarms for 4:15 to get to our first store that opened at 5. We had Shoe Carnival as our first stop because they had a deal going that the first 100 people got a gift card, most of which were worth $10, but one lucky winner would get one worth $100. I scratched mine off and saw the expected $10, so I went over to my mother to see hers. She was still scratching, and I saw the 1 and the 0, and thought ok cool, but she kept scratching, and another 0 appeared. $100!!! We had to take it over to the clerk to verify what we were seeing, because it seemed so preposterous that we couldn't truly believe thats what it actually said. Thanks to a coupon for $10 off a purchase of $70 or more, we ended up having $120 of free money to spend. Our purchase had to be over that amount, and with tax our purchases (after a quick addition of a pair of socks) totaled $125.22 before discounts. Everything was on such a bargain price anyway that when we got home we surveyed what we had bought and added up their original prices. We walked out of there with 2 new pairs of boots, one for each of us, a new pair of New Balance exercise shoes for my mother, and another pair of shoes (that I don't get to know exactly what until Christmas morning, but I have a pretty good guess about), as well as two packs of 3, plus another pack of 1 different style of socks. The price of everything before any sales was $230. We spent a grand total of $5.22. It was amazing, and I still can't believe it was us. The rest of the morning was spent having fun with the early morning madness, and ended with our traditional breakfast out. It's a crazy tradition, but I absolutely love Black Friday.
I hope everyone's Thanksgiving was as wonderful as mine, despite it's rough start. I have so much to be thankful for, and am grateful to have started out this holiday season on such a beautiful note. Now on to the Christmas festivities, starting with my mother's choir concert downtown at the Assembly Hall tonight, and more concerts in a couple of weeks at Bingham. Now I just need to survive through finals week. Love you all!
