Thanksgiving!

We have had a fantastic Thanksgiving weekend, and are more than a little sad that it's over. I can't even describe how difficult it was to get out of bed this morning and go to work. To top it all off, I have parent-teacher conferences tonight...every teacher's favorite night of the year! My parents and siblings were all together for the holiday in Utah, and though I miss them lots, I didn't feel sad being the only one far away thanks to great east coast family we got to spend our time with.

The festivities started nearly a week ago. On Tuesday night Jon and I drove to Virginia to meet up with Lauren who had caught a ride up from SVU with Lisa and Bill who were coming up from West Virginia (thanks guys!) . It was fun to get to chat with them for a little bit, though the visit was definitely too brief. We drove the hour and a half back to good ol' Nottingham, MD and crashed (for the night, not the car). Wednesday Jon and I both had to work, so Lauren had the house to herself for a bit. I got off by 1 pm, and Jon took a half day, so we spent the afternoon making pies, glorious pies, and the in the evening picked Chris up from the bus station (he rode down from NYC). It was so fun to have them with us! We had a spaghetti dinner, made a couple more pies, and went to bed early.
Thursday morning, we packed our bags and pies, hopped in the car, and headed back down to Virginia to spend the holiday with Jon's uncle and aunt, Brad and Joy. The traffic was surprisingly light, and we made good time. We spent the morning hanging out, watching Elf, tossing around footballs and frisbes, and Jon, Chris and Lauren even joined Brad in the back yard for some archery lessons. We had a fabulous meal together, and finished a few pounds heavier than we started. After a brief trip to Doug (cousin)'s in-laws for visiting and a visit from Santa Clause, we headed back to Brad and Joy's for pie and football (hook 'em horns!) I must confess that while football is definitely growing on me now that I somewhat understand the rules, I was exhausted, and fell asleep before half-time, at which point, Jon dragged me downstairs to bed. I was very grateful.
Friday morning Doug and Pam, along with little (adorable) Hannah, came over for breakfast, and we had a great time eating more food and chatting. Then we packed our bags, and followed Brad to the shooting range for some "skeet" (which I gather to mean shooting clay pidgeons with shotguns. News flash: I always imagined that "clay pidgeons" looked like pidgeons. If you're like me, I have news for you. They don't. They look more like tiny ceramic frisbes). I was a little bit hesitant about the whole activity. Let's just say I'm not really a "gun person". However, I was pleasently surprised! We ended up having a blast! And with Uncle Brad's expert advise, I met my goal of hitting one "bird" (frisbe). Chris and Jon tore it up, and Lauren turned out to be quite a natural herself. From the range, we got back in the car and headed toward MD, but not without a stop or two before getting there. Thanks Brad and Joy, for the awesome Thanksgiving!!

All that shooting made us hungry, so we stopped at a place that came highly recommended on our GPS (aka it was only 1.4 miles away) for some "New York" style pizza. Chris, our resident New Yorker wasn't overly impressed, but the rest of us thoroughly enjoyed ourselves. Post-pizza we headed to our next stop: Ticonderoga Farms, to purchase a Christmas tree! We will be in Utah for Christmas and Texas for New Years, but we wanted to put up a tree of our own anyway, and thought the experience of cutting our own was too good to pass up. The particular place we went had more than just trees...it also had slides, and a hayride. I'll let the pictures tell the rest of the story.

We made it home without losing our tree from the roof of the car, and threw together a quick stir-fry for dinner. After re-fueling, we decorated the tree and the house, and we are now ready for Christmas. :)

We spent the rest of the weekend lounging, watching movies, shopping, eating, going to church, and eating some more. Sunday night came all too soon. Chris headed back to NYC this morning, and Lauren is taking off tonight with a guy from our ward who also goes to SVU. It will be lonely around here without them. (Note: visitors are always welcome!)

Now it's back to the grindstone for three more weeks, and then....Christmas Break!! I can NOT wait!