Thanks for Thanksgiving

We had a wonderful Thanksgiving. We didn’t do anything special we just did everything TOGETHER. I feel fortunate that we had the whole family together. One never knows when we all will be together again—hopefully soon.

The star of the weekend was, of course, Sophia. With 6 adults at her beck and call (and no ear infections to spoil her mood) she was on her game and eating up every minute of it.

Penny made fantastic food, recruiting help where necessary. Christian added his tradition of baking bread for the Thanksgiving meal. We all ate ‘till we were stuffed on Thursday.

Thursday night Karen organized our Black Friday commando teams, assigning each a location to hit early in the morning. We got up at 4 AM on Friday and headed out after a quick breakfast. My assignment was Bass Pro Shop and a meat smoker to replace my ailing one. We purchased Karen and Tim’s gifts on-line on Thursday evening so that eliminated the store Penny was assigned. So Penny stayed home and watched Sophia while the rest hit their targets or should I say their target which was Target.

My experience was interesting. The people in line waiting for the store to open were pleasant. The guy in front of me was hoping to get a fleece jacket. He explained that he was a Baptist and this was as close to playing the lottery as he could get. The woman behind me was hoping for a GPS. Then it began to rain and then pour. I had an umbrella in the car and I got it while the others saved my spot. They had already sent their partners to get their umbrellas. I heard the woman behind me call her daughter Christina so I mentioned that I had a daughter named Christina. She proudly informed me that her name was spelled with a “K”. The rain caused about half the people in line to leave their place and take shelter under the big roof over the boat area of the store. That got us a lot closer to the door. They also opened up early to get the folks out of the rain.

As I entered the store I saw 3 guys coming down the stairs carrying smokers so I knew where to go to get one. I asked one of them where the smokers were as I passed him on the stairs and he said to go left at the top of the stairs and they were along the railing. Having that information got me there just in time to grab the last one. Now all I had to do was carry it down the stair through the check-out and out to the car. The thing weighs about 50 lbs, which would have been ok except the box it was in was about 4 ft high and 18 inches wide and deep. The box had no hand holds. Add to that the complication of carrying a wet umbrella and having wet hands that did not grip the box well and it made for quite an experience and workout. I managed OK. I only skewered one person on the stairs with my umbrella and a very nice woman let me borrow her cart when I reached the bottom of the stairs.

My next stop was Sears but on the way we used our commando communication network (cell phones) to check on how the other missions were going. We experienced 100% success.

The rest of Friday involved a meal at Harbordock’s, shopping some more and a great picture taking session at the beach.

Saturday was football and church day.

Sunday everyone went home.

I picked a few pictures from the weekend and put them here so you can see them.
http://picasaweb.google.com/gugliepb/TGVG08

I am very thankful this year.

KITTY UPDATE: The dogs visiting had little effect on the cats. All 4 showed up tonight.