Thanksgiving 2016

We had a really great Thanksgiving!

 

We actually decided to stay home this year and, for the first time in my adult life, I HOSTED!  I was so excited!  We decided to stay home because it was the first major holiday in our new home but also because, due to parenting plans and custody and all that, we won't have all five kids for Christmas.  This felt like the chance to "Christmas" without it being December 25th.  And we ended up having a really great time.

 

 

Mark fried the turkey and smoked a ham and also did the gravy and baked a broccoli cauliflower casserole.  Cady brought macaroni and cheese and deviled eggs.  I made dressing, potato casserole, green bean casserole, mashed potatoes, sausage balls, rolls, pecan pie, chocolate pie, and a pumpkin poke cake.  My feet hurt like hell after standing up for what felt like two days straight but I LOVED EVERY MINUTE OF IT.

We had a slight incident with the turkey fryer -- there was a leak in the something or other (sorry, I'm not the one who fries the turkey) so we had to run and borrow Russell's, delaying our dinner about an hour.  I told Mark it's not a holiday if you're not running late!

 

We ate good food, drank a lot of wine, and watched football.  Pretty much the perfect Thanksgiving.

 

I also made pudding shots!  And, since I Made them for the kids, had to churn out some for the kiddies too. #Momoftheyear  The kid ones are alllll gone and we still have half of the adult ones.  Ahhh.

 

I love Thanksgiving so much.  It's all my favorite things rolled into one Thursday in November: family, friends, food, fun, and FOOTBALL.  We indulged more of that football on Friday by going to the Memphis/ Houston game.

 

Tickets were dirt cheap so we ended up with ahhhhmazing seats.

 

It was easily the best game I've seen in college football this season.  SUCH a great game.

 

 

Best part of it?  Memphis won!  Woo Hoo!

Hey, Derek Mason, WHO is the best team in Tennessee?!?  WE own this state!

After the game, we came home and watched the Hogs lose (*eye roll*), Mark and I both took long naps, and I sent the kids to bed early because they were being a-holes (#realtalk.)

The rest of our weekend was spent watching football and decorating for Christmas (more on that later this week - maybe/ hopefully.)  We went over to Russell's for a bit on Saturday to watch the Iron Bowl.

 



There's a chance Russell had all my kids screaming, "WAR EAGLE!"

Sunday was more decorating, more football, and a heartbreaker of a Bears game.  Wow!

This week is going to be interesting . . . my last week before finals and Mark is traveling all week.  Ahhh, pray for me!

B-E-A-UTIFUL Tennessee!

A couple months ago we were over at Russell and Kathy's house when Kathy pulled me aside and told me Russell's 50th was coming up in November and she wanted to take him on surprise trip . . . and wanted us to join them.

 

Miracles happened and we were able to secure sitters.  Friday morning, we set out . . . Gatlinburg bound!

 

I took this picture through the sunroof on the way.  Dem trees, doh!

 

Y'all.

 

We laughed SO HARD the whole way there.

 

It's about a 6.5 hour drive, made longer by the potty breaks, time change, and traffic, and we seriously had so much fun.

 

Kathy booked our cabin off of VRBO - a place called "A Tree Top View" and WOW.  It was something else.  My boyfriend is still is a little boy at heart and ran straight for the arcade.  ;)

 

The cabin was decorated beautifully.  Oh my, it was SO amazing.  The guys tried their hands at playing pool but, uh, there was no chalk (more on that later!)

 

We arrived after dark so when I woke up Saturday morning, I was AMAZED by our view.

Oh. Em. Gee.

 

This is from our living room window!!!

We went to breakfast on Saturday morning, for the life of me I can't remember the name of the place.  I had an omelet with biscuits and gravy and Mark had the chicken fried steak and eggs with grits.  The omelet was mediocre and the steak a little underdone but that biscuits and gravy?!?!  Jesus take the wheel, GOOD EFFING STUFF.

We hit up the grocery store after breakfast then made our way back to the cabin.  We spent the rest of the afternoon watching football and eating and, basically, doing whatever we would've done if we'd been in Memphis.  Ha!  But it was SUCH a more awesome view!

 

I MEAN!

 

Mark grilled Saturday night - the BEST bacon wrapped pork loin!  Kathy made a banana pudding instead of a birthday cake.  Arkansas won, Auburn won.  We were all in bed before 10.  It was kinda amazing. 

 

Sunday morning(ish), we got up and got ready to find a bar that had Sunday Ticket so Mark could watch his Bearssss.

 

We started off at a place called Drafts.  It was nice enough (and the food was really good!) buuuuut . . . it was soon taken over by a Pop Warner football team and their families, which kinda killed our vibe.  We decided to head to another place, Puckers, at halftime.  This bar had Sunday Ticket but they REFUSED to turn on the Bears game!  It was the most bizarre thing . . . like, they legit did not care at all about customer service.  (There were five games on at the time and, like, 20 TV's in this bar!)  (And, also, this is the place where Mark, um, "borrowed" some chalk that we took back to our pool table . . . ) So, obvs, we left and went next door to a place called . . . wait for it . . . HOGG'S!!!!!

They did not have Sunday Ticket (wahhhh!) but we had the best time hanging out and people watching.  It was too fun.

After we had our fill of shootin' the shit there, we headed back to the cabin.  This cabin had SO MUCH that it was hard to make use of our of three nights: hot tub, arcade, pool table, media room, fire pit.  We decided to light up the fire pit Sunday afternoon and it was AMAZING.  We kept saying, "we should get in the hot tub" and, yet, never moved from the fire.  It was awesome.

 

We decided to do Russell's birthday dinner Sunday night and headed to Cherokee Grill and here is where I serve up some REAL TALK.

On the way home yesterday, Kathy asked, "after we got back to the cabin yesterday, did y'all get in the hot tub?"
*Mark and I look at each other*
"Uhhhhh . . . ."
Mark, "I was so shit canned, all I remember is waking up this morning,"

Then.  THEN.  Kathy mentions that we all took Fireball shots and, holy shit, no wonder we don't remember that night!  And keep in mind, we were celebrating a 50th birthday.  Who says the middle aged set can't have fun?!?

We headed home Monday morning and that ROYALLY SUCKED.  We kept talking about what a great trip it was - AND IT WAS! - but we seriously needed a few more days.  And that brings me to something I'm SUPER thankful for: a couple that we can travel with!  Wow, did we have such a great time (so much that we were ready to add another day or two on to the trip!)

I sincerely hope Russell had a great birthday weekend (and by everything he said, yes, YES, he did!) because we had a freaking blast!  Can't wait to head back to Gatlinburg!

Beat USF!

We started Saturday off with a little soccer and a little basketball.  K's team won 5-1 and Kyan's 22-12.  He scored two points and had more assists and rebounds than anyone else on his team!  He's one of the smallest on his team, and definitely the scrawniest, but he has a TON of heart and always wants to do his very best.

 

 

After their games, we went home and got ready for a little MEMPHIS TIGER football. 

We decided earlier in the week to head out to Tiger Lane to tailgate.  I've tailgated there before - earlier this year for the Liberty Bowl - but never for a Memphis game.  It wasn't as big as an SEC tailgate or anything but still so much fun.  The kids ran into several friends from school, played two hand touch, and jumped on the bounce houses.

 

So, we caravanned over to the game with Russell and a couple buddies of his.  We crashed their tailgate and Mark kept calling Anthony to try to find out where he was.  Turns out . . . his tailgate was right next to where we were. But it seriously took us nearly an hour to figure that out.  Ha!

 

Check out the moon!

We had every intention of going to the game but . . . well, shit happens.  We had some drama with the girls and I was pretty upset.  Then, we couldn't leave our coolers with the people we were tailgating with.  In the end, we decided just to pack it up and go home.  So that's exactly what we did, with three crying kids in tow.  Ahhhh.  Good times.  (Really, though, we had a blast tailgating until the final half hour!)

 

We came home and watched the Razorbacks lose and some more crazy ass results in college football.  What the heck happened last weekend, NCAA?!?!  2016, thou are drunk, go home.

 

Sunday morning we were up bright and early.  Mark's brother and family were in middle Tennessee so we headed a little ways up I-40 to meet them for brunch.  I found a restaurant called "Patty's" in Wildersville that had good reviews on Yelp so we decided to meet there.  Um, probably one of the best decisions ever.

 

Mark and I both chose the buffet -- which had meatballs, fried chicken, pork chops, mashed potatoes, macaroni, fried cauliflower, four kinds of veggies, rolls, and three different desserts, plus a little salad bar.  It was only $9.99.  And, wow, was it some of the best southern home cooking I've had in a long, long time.  Still dreamin' about that macaroni . . .

 

We had such a nice little visit.  It's always good to see family and we had a great time catching up with them.

 

We came home, watched the Bears lose ("Jay Cutler gave them at least eight points!  Eight!  He just gave them away!"), the Broncos win, and then watched one hell of a Cowboys game.

 

We may only have one official Cowboys fan in the house but we're all on TEAM DAK!  SEC boy. ;)

That's a wrap on a thoroughly exhausting - but so fun - three day weekend.

Patriotism and Sleepovers

I haven't felt much like blogging lately.  I'm way too obsessed with looking up Biden memes.

 

These are giving me LIFE right now.  I think they are for most people.

 

In all actuality, life has been really hectic lately.  And, honestly, it feels like the thunderstorm before the tornado for me because I have finals looming.  Ahhhhh. Taking things one day at a time and counting down until early December when finals are over.

 

I carved out a few minutes to find time to write.  Mainly because, in addition to being hectic, life is also really, really fun right now.  I want to record these days.  I want to remember them.

 

The kids had a three day weekend but Thursday might as well have been a holiday too.  The kids had "I Love America" at school, something that is a HUGE, HUGE deal.  They do a program for veterans, a big school wide picnic, then follow everything up with a parade.  Families are encouraged to attend and it's just a really big thing.  I wasn't able to be there for the entire day but did make it to the parade.  Both boys marched with other kids from their classes.

 

During the parade, the girlchild and I stood with Karis and her class.  J marched at the very beginning so he came to join us pretty quickly.  When the class representing Wisconsin marched by, they were all decked out in Green Bay Packers gear.  This led to J shouting, "Booo!  Go Bears!" which then led to the entire class on the other side of the street from us booing.  Ahhhhh.  That kid!

It really was a fun day and I was so glad I made it for the parade.  Maybe next year, I can arrange things where I can be there for the entire day.

 

Since the kids didn't have school on Friday, Avery came over for a sleepover Thursday night.  Karis has been DYING to have a sleepover so she was super, super excited. 

The girls played, laughed, watched princess movies, dressed up, and stayed up late. Karis INSISTED on dragging a billion blankets into the living room and camping out in front of the TV.  The boys didn't want to be left out so they crashed on the couches.

Friday afternoon I took Avery home and the kids jumped on the trampoline for a while.  I promise J is happier than he looks!  He'd been begging to go over there and jump for months.

 

Friday night, Karis and J went with their dad so they could easily get to soccer the next morning.  We only had two kids, which was really weird.  Russell came over and we grilled burgers.  Oh, and this happened . . .

It was 62* and these two jumped in the pool.  Polar plunge!  And, yes, we realize we're parents of the year.

Saturday and Sunday were a blast too -- I'll post about that tomorrow!