Our Thanksgiving day and night

We had such a fun and interesting Thanksgiving day and night. For the past 4 years we’ve been having Thanksgiving with some dear friends of ours, and this year it was their turn to host it. Then on Friday I was going to make our own turkey so we could have our own leftovers. But we weren’t even sure if we would be making it to our friends house or not. They were dealing with illness for about a week, then on Wednesday, when they we feeling a bit better, I started to feel crummy. I did get a pumpkin pie made, but Sarah had to make the two pans of apple crisp and a pan of cookies. I slept on the couch while she did the baking. We left it that if I felt better on Thursday morning we would go over as planned. Well Thursday I did feel better, and as we all got up, wishing each other a Happy Thanksgiving and looking forward to watching the parade we were in for a shock. We looked into our kitchen and it was flooded!!!

Remember our new dishwasher that our landlord installed last Saturday? Well, we had been using it for 4 days with no problem. But somehow the connection with the hot water line into the dishwasher became loose. So not only did it leak from there, but the water just kept running all night long. We don’t start our dishwasher right away, we do a delay start and have it start about midnight. So it just kept running all night, and we didn’t know. 🙁 It took us about an hour to clean up all the water and set fans around the house to help it dry where it seeped through to our carpet. It was kind of a tense start to our day, but thankfully we could still enjoy some of the parade.

Once it was all cleaned up I started working on the dressing I needed to make. Some we were taking with us, and some we were leaving for us to have on Friday. We got over to our friends house on time, and we had a great meal together. We sat and chatted for a while afterward, talking a lot about trying to get an Xbox 360 holiday bundle pack. Both of us were looking for one, and Best Buy was having them $50 cheaper than they normally are. We could have gotten it earlier in the week, all the stores had them in stock, not for the Best Buy price, but we thought we might try the Black Friday event. We figured if we couldn’t get it for the $50 savings, we would just got to Walmart and pick it up for the regular price. Our friends figured to do the same thing. We left early so we could rest, then we met up with our friends again around 11:30pm that night! 😀 This is the first Black Friday shopping we have ever done. Our friends got to Best Buy first, and the tickets for the cheaper bundle were already gone, so we figured since we are already out, lets just go to WM and pick it up for the regular price (which actually was a sale price too, just not as big of a sale as Best Buy would have been). We get to the store and shockingly they were out of the bundles completely!

We all left and went to another WM across town. We couldn’t find the bundle there either, so we again asked if they had any Xbox holiday bundles. They say, “Oh yes, there is a pallet full in Sporting Goods.” Don’t ask me why they had electronics in sporting goods, but we all took off toward sporting goods. Unfortunately when we found the pallet we saw that it was the wrong holiday bundle. 🙁 At this point I’m really beginning to realize we might get this holiday bundle like we planned, which I didn’t understand. The price for this bundle has been the same price for weeks, it wasn’t a Black Friday special, and it’s been widely available too. But since it was Black Friday, and it was a good price, everyone was buying them. We figured we would have to buy it online somewhere. We split up from our friends as they were heading home, and we decided to pick up a few things at the store since we were there. It really wasn’t crowded at all, since it had been open since 8.

We bought our few things and as we were driving home we passed by Target. I looked at Paul, “What do you think, should we stop and look?” He said, why not we are already out. So we casually walk in Target and head to electronics. We ask where they kept the Xbox Consoles, and when we walked to the area they were kept we saw the same bundle WM had, which isn’t the one we want. I walk a bit closer to look and there on the shelf was one bundle left of what we were looking for! I put my hand on it at the same time a guy did. I thought for a split second, Ok I’m not going to fight over this, but I will at least let him know I wanted it too. But right as he glances at me, he looks at the box and says, “Oh, this isn’t the Kinect” and he walks away and grabs the other bundle. You know I picked up that boxer faster than anything. 😀 Paul was already walking away, thinking it wasn’t there until he saw me pick something up. We all just walked away around the corner to make sure it was what we wanted, smiling and laughing the whole time. We really couldn’t believe we found what we wanted, and that we got the last one in Target. No standing outside for days or hours, just walking in casual and having fun. We kept saying all night what great memories we were making, because truly that’s what it was, some great memories. Just the fun of going out together at midnight on Thanksgiving, experiencing some of the Black Friday craziness (but not too much) and walking away with what we really wanted. All the time enjoying our it together.

We didn’t set it up that night, since we didn’t get home until about 1:00am, but we set it up first thing Friday morning. Well first thing to us, since we were up so late, was late morning. lol We had fun using it, while our turkey was cooking in our roaster oven. Then we put on It’s A Wonderful Life, set up our Christmas tree and decorated the house. It doesn’t take us long to decorate, our house isn’t that big. This was also a new tree for us. We got it last year on sale after the season was over. It’s bigger than the one we had, and it’s so pretty. It set up quick and easy and looks good with our ornaments.

Paul doesn’t have to go back to work until Wednesday, so we have a mini-vacation going here. One of the things I like about retail, sometimes weekends get put together so you have multiple days off in a row. Thursday and Friday was a great start to our days off, and today, well today we just rested and played a bit on Xbox. 😉 We’ve been enjoying our leftovers and tonight we’ll watch a Christmas movie together. The rest of our days off will be ones of resting and trying to get to feeling 100%. Paul and I both are dealing with some sore throats and lack of energy. We just need to rest and keep up the liquids. Oh, and as far as the dishwasher, our landlord stopped by today and checked it. Paul had tightened the fitting on Thursday, though we haven’t been using it. We wanted to wait until our landlord said it was ok. He said it should be fine, but believe me. For the next few months we will only be running it while we are all awake. That way if there is any issues, we can catch it right away. 🙂

Here are some pictures of our Thanksgiving.

Proof of our baking:

A fun Thanksgiving meal with friends:

Our Black Friday purchase: