Thanksgiving Weekend Update

Thursday - aka "Thanksgiving":

Dinner at my mother in-laws house. Predictable day.

• 12:30 p.m. = arrive
• 12:35-1:35 p.m. = look through sale paper, make lists of what Jeff, the kids and I want
• 1:35-2:00 p.m. = carry all the food to the basement where a large table was set up (mother in-law prepared ALL food, I learned years ago this is what she prefers)
• 2:00-2:45 p.m. = Eat. Very little talking, mostly comments on how good food is.
• 2:45-3:00 p.m. = Carry all dishes and food back upstairs
• 3:00-3:45 p.m. = While the "men" carry up Christmas boxes, rearrange living room furniture and put up tree, I clean all of the meat off the turkey carcus while mother and sister-in-law begin dishes. I join dish duty when poultry is properly pulled into pieces and bagged neatly in Ziploc's.
• 3:45-4:00 = Mother-in-law reviews holiday list ideas, marks which items she plans on buying and hands back to us.
• 4:00 p.m. = Depart for home.

Back in Oregon, we stop at my parents house and visit for awhile before heading home.

Black Friday:

Jeff is working at the tree farm all day so the kids and I take my sister to Rockford dropping off her laptop to be fixed. Schweaty Man is going to look at it for her. She mentions to me after we drop it off how she hopes he won't be able to find certain pics her that her roommates took saved on the harddrive. My stomach turns at the idea of someone oogling at naughty pics of my kid sis and I suddenly realize all of my "Girls Gone Wild" lectures have fallen on deaf ears.

Stephie and I get a call on the cell phone. My parents have found her a new puppy for only $350 (ugh!).I will admit she is very cute, and neatly fits in the palm of your hand. Only three weeks old so Steph will have to wait until 12/17 to actually take her home. She has named her Delilah...she will be Samson's girlfriend (the current dog). We then enjoyed lunch at Beef-A-Roo with the parental units.

On the way home, we had a light bulb moment. With my parents moving (or not) all depending on if their house sale goes through, we figured they would not bother with a tree. Steph and I went to the tree farm, got them a tree, took it home, put it up and decorated it before they got home. Yeah...we're going for daughters of the year.

My evening was spent going to the grocery store to prepare for the Byrd Family Thanksgiving on Saturday.

Saturday:

Jeff is working at the tree farm from 8 to noon, so I am stuck getting the kids and all of our food ready for the party so we can leave when he gets home. I somehow manage to throw together three dishes, get myself and the three kids showered and ready all while Stephie is doing homework on my PC and my Mom is making pumpkin pies in my kitchen because her stove sucks. We arrive at Uncle Bob's around 1:00 and enjoy a typical Byrd family day.

As I am about to leave Bob's for Rockford (the Casseroles were meeting at ShoGun), my step-dad runs in the house and yells "we need help, Brett is hurt". Brett is my soon-to-be 38 year old brother. The short version is this: he and Aunt Tami were riding the ATV in the pitch dark woods. ATV can't make it up hill, flips over, Tami falls off, Brett and bike flip twice. ATV lands directly on Brett's face. Brett's face = bad. Broken nose, bottom lip and chin torn and hanging off of his face, all cheek tissue torn from gum tissue inside mouth, all nasal tissue torn inside of nose. Ambulance picks him up and he spends night in hospital. I miss my Casserole meeting. Evening pretty much sucks.

Sunday:

Jeff is working all day at tree farm. Get kids and myself ready for the day. Abi had a slumber/birthday party the night before so I get her at 10am, update her on Uncle Brett and find out she was up until 3am. This should fit in with the rest of the day nicely (sarcasm). Pick up Mom at 10:45 to head to Rockford. SugarLips was dropped off at the other Grandma N's house so Abi, Emi and I could have lunch and a play with Grandma T and Great Aunt Terrie. We enjoy a nice lunch at Stockholm Inn and tell tales of my brothers new face and listen to the girls update Terrie on band, girl scouts, friends, school, basketball and everything in between. We then take in Alice in Wonderland at New American Theatre. It was FABULOUS! An old high school friend was the Cheshire Cat and I was glad to see he recognized me and we quickly caught up when the play was over. As mom and I are heading back home, she suddenly blurts out "we forgot Isaac". We drive back to the city to pick up my son, none the wiser to fact he was forgotten.

After arriving back in "our town", the kids are left with Grandma T and Papa so Jeff and can go and put our dwindled down gift list on layaway. This takes us several hours and by the time we are done, I'm exhausted. $450 worth selected and purchased, about $200 worth not found. This is pretty conservative compared to our normal $1000-$1200 budget. We may make it through the entire holiday season with a single use of credit cards.

This causes me to exclaim: "Hallelujah"

Sorry if this post is long, full of spelling errors and rambling...I am drinking Zima XXX Hard Green Apple. I sure it has way too many calories, but I not sure I care right now.