This year, it was very different, for several reasons. The obvious reason being we just had a baby, who turned 4 weeks old the day before Thanksgiving. The other being, that we live in a new city and for the first time BOTH of our families were traveling to see us to celebrate. With Paul being in the Club business, we have to wait and celebrate on the Friday after, which has worked out nicely, so that even my Nanny gets to come! The past 2 Thanksgivings, we've lived in Greenville, where my family lives, so my family would come for the day and the Rutherfords would all come and stay with us (they fit in our old house, but barely!...Mom and Pop in the front guest bedroom, Matt in the back guest bedroom, and Drew, Heather, and their 2 girls in the bonus room on the sleeper sofa and air mattress) for the long weekend. This time, my family and Nanny stayed with us (using the guest room, air mattress on the floor in Grace's room, and the sleeper sofa in the office), and the Rutherfords all came and stayed in a hotel, literally 2 minutes away. My mom and sister came down on Tuesday to hang out, my daddy came down early Thursday morning, Mom and Pop and Matt and Kendal rolled in about lunch time Thursday, my Aunt Sandy (and Uncle mike and cousin Allison and her fiance Reid) dropped Nanny off Thursday afternoon (and stayed for a bit to meet Grace), and Drew and Heather and the girls finally made it Thursday night. If you are counting, that is 15 people staying for Thanksgiving (counting Grace). Thursday night, after everyone left and I fed the baby and put her down, I did the prep work and put the green bean casserole together and made the stuffing, while Mama and Kristen hung out with me. At about 11:50, we loaded up the car and headed out to H.H.Gregg. We parked the car in the parking lot, walked in, and walked right back out...what a nightmare! We walked over to Kohls and did a little shopping, put the bags in the car and walked over to WalMart and did a little more. We were back at the house and eating a snack at 1:15am. SO MUCH FUN!...we will definitely be doing that again!
Friday morning, I woke up at about 7:00am, fed Grace, went downstairs and preped the turkery, stuffed it, and put it in the oven to cook. I then took Grace to my mom and went and picked up Paul (he had to go into work for a few minutes to do payroll), grabbed breakfast at Chick-fil-a, and headed to J.C.Penny's where we ordered our new furniture. We got back to the house in time to meet up with the Rutherford family, and the cooking began! Along with the turkey and stuffing, I made the green bean casserole, rice and homemade gravy. We delegated the rest: my Mama made the dressing, Daddy brought the ice cream, Mom made the pies, Pop made the tea and coffee, Drew made the mashed potatoes, Heather made the fruit salad, Matt made the pumpkin bread, Kendal brought the cranberry sauce, and my sister brought the olives and pickles. We have A LOT of food because neither Paul nor I are willing to compromise our family dishes...lol. After a big, late lunch and some pie for dessert, and after the dishes were done, everyone headed back to the hotel. That evening, the 3 brothers and their significant others headed out for a late happy hour, to get to know Kendal a little more.
Saturday, we packed up a picnic lunch of turkey sandwiches, and headed to a local park. After lunch, some of us headed for a quick walk around the lake and then started a friendly family game of wiffle ball. We had to be back to the house in time to watch the VT game (and the Clemson game after that, of course.)
By late Sunday morning, everyone was gone and the house was quiet and empty. Grace spent Sunday and Monday catching up on her sleep from all of the being passed around. She was definitely the life of the party! It was a good thing that I was nursing or I may not have gotten to hold her the whole weekend...lol.
Overall, I would have to say that we have a lot to be thankful for, and that this was definitely the BEST Thanksgiving ever!
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