Thanksgiving Weekend

We spent Thanksgiving this year with Sean's family. We had a blast!! A few weeks before Christmas, Lorraine sent out an email asking what everyone wanted to do for Thanksgiving. Were there traditions that the spouses wanted to bring in from our families? I mentioned that a smoked turkey is my favorite thing but since we didn't have a smoker that wouldn't be possible. Well, Lorraine was awesome, and bought a smoker!! She provided the turkey, and Sean and I (meaning Sean) smoked it. It turned out brilliantly! Everyone loved it, and there was enough left for everyone to take some home. Well, theoretically. We devoured ours in the car on the way home! For Thanksgiving dinner we also had Sean's amazing mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes, bratwurst (per Ryan's request) and tons of veggies. It was delicious!

Sean and I went over to Brad and Lorraine's Wednesday morning to get the turkey brining. Then we went back Wednesday night to rinse it and get it ready to smoke. We ended up just staying the night there Wednesday night and woke up early Thursday morning to start the smoker. Caitlin was able to be in town this year (Yay!) so we had fun cooking and playing games. After dinner, we all sat around looking at the Black Friday ads. Then...we divided and conquered.

Sean and I headed to Walmart at midnight. Aimee and a friend headed to Toys R Us and Washington Square at 10 pm, and Heidi and Caiti headed to Target and Sports Authority at midnight. We all had lists of things we wanted so it was nice to be able to get stuff from the other stores while only having to go to one place!

Sean and I really wanted a laptop and Walmart had a smoking deal. So Sean and I got to Walmart at midnight, ran to figure out where we were supposed to be, and at 12:20 got a ticket for the 13th out of 14th Laptop. We then had to wait in the pillow aisle until 2am when they gave us wristbands that staked a claim on one of the laptops. There was someone who didn't want the laptop bad enough to wait in line forever so we actually ended up with a wristband for 2 laptops. Sean's friend had been looking for one so we figured we'd pick one up for him. If they didn't want it, then we could just sell it! So after 2, we went and wandered and found a couple more things that we wanted. Then we headed back to the pillow aisle. It was 3:30, and we had to wait until 5 to get our laptops. (Lame, I know.) So we ended up back in the pillow aisle tired and bored. So we went to the game section and grabbed Monopoly Deal off the wall. We brought it back and made ourselves comfortable and played a few rounds! We of course paid for this when we paid for everything else :)

When it came around to 5, we were getting our 2 laptops but Sean wanted to wait an extra half hour to see if he could possible get a third laptop as well. (Weird kid!) So we finally left the store at 5:45 am with 3 laptops in our cart, along with $150 worth of Christmas presents for Heidi's family, and our kids. It was fun! And definitely exhausting :) We slept in until 10 (thank you Brad and Lorraine for watching the boys!!) and the rest of the day was super relaxing. Saturday morning we went and got our Christmas tree! The boys had fun romping through the mud and running around with their cousins! We found the cutest little tree for $10 then went back to Brad and Lorraine's for brunch. After brunch we rushed home to get the tree in water, and showered really quick, then we were on our way back to Hillsboro!

Brad and Lorraine were watching our children again while Sean, Heidi, Ryan, Mikey, Brookie and I headed to the Kurt Bestor concert!! It was so amazing! It was definitely worth it, and it was  a fun memory to make! Kurt Bestor and his band, along with Jenny Jordan Frogley and some local orchestra members were phenomenal performers. If he ever comes back to Portland, I am definitely going!

Sunday we went back to Brad and Lorraine's to play games with Cait before she left on Monday. We also had family dinner again! There was definitely no shortage of food this weekend!

Monday for FHE we decorated the tree. The boys loved it!

Oh, and as for running Thanksgiving morning? Yeah...that didn't happen. This baby is zapping ALL of my energy out of me. I hope hope hope that next year though I can relight that tradition!

Now for all the pictures...

Cute story, while I was taking my turn in sawing down the tree, Asher was getting grumpy. He came and laid his head down on mine and came and cuddled with me for a little bit. It was raining (hence the drops on the lens) but he didn't even care. He was so content just laying there with Mama. And Mama? Was in heaven...  And yes, we had 2 more heavy layers on that kid but he kept taking them off saying "I not cold." So we used his jacket as our dirt protector instead :)