I can hardly believe it’s already December. A mere 22 days until Christmas! This is my absolute favorite time of the year and we kicked off the holiday season on a good note. It had been since June since I had any time off from work so a vacation was certainly in order! Our annual trip to Dallas took place the weekend before Thanksgiving so I took the opportunity to take an entire week off of work : ) Here’s what we’ve been up to lately:
Saturday – Tuesday: our trip to Dallas {full recap & pictures coming soon}
Wednesday: My entire day was spent baking and running errands with Mom. I volunteered to be in charge of desserts for Thanksgiving dinner so I needed to get some prep work done so I wasn’t left scrambling Thanksgiving morning. On the menu: pumpkin pie, pumpkin cheesecake, carrot cake cupcakes, apple crumble pie, and lastly, birthday cake. Our Thanksgiving spread isn’t complete without birthday cake, especially since cousin Joe was celebrating his 30th birthday ON Thanksgiving this year.
We had a delightful evening over Mom & Dad’s playing LCR : ) Jenn, Ed, Louis, Michele, Craig, Renee, Mom, Dad, Ken & I all gathered around the table for an exciting game of LCR. We of course play for money! It makes it so much more exciting…well, let’s just say luck was on our side that night because of the 11 games we ended up playing…I won four, Mom won four, and Dad won three! WOW! That NEVER happens : ) I doubt we’ll convince the others to play again anytime soon ; )
Thanksgiving: I finished up my baking all while watching the Thanksgiving Day parade and listening to Christmas tune. Hey, I was in the holiday spirit and more than ready for the holiday season : ) We headed to Aunt Deb’s for dinner and it certainly was delicious. Ken & I spent most of the time in front of the tv watching the Cowboys kick butt! While I love watching football on Thanksgiving, I wish the game wasn’t on right during prime dinner time : o) It was delightful spending time with family!
Black Friday: Yes, I was crazy enough to join the hundreds of people lining up at stores long before sunrise in hopes of snagging a good deal! My alarm buzzed me out of my slumber at 4 am and by 4:15 I was in line at Target, already at least 50 people deep. Did I get what I was hoping to snag?! Unfortunately not! But I’m thankful I didn’t brave the cold any earlier because I overheard someone who had been there since 3 am didn’t even get the same thing I was hoping for. Oh well, at least I tried! But I did score some sweet savings at both Joann and Wal-Mart so in all, it was a successful venture! P.S. Dad said it was his first and LAST Black Friday! Hehe. It wasn’t even that bad…I could’ve taken him to Kohl’s : o)
Back to Reality: The rest of the weekend was spent running a few other errands, buying our new electric fireplace (yay!), picking out our tree, celebrating our second Thanksgiving dinner with Ken’s family, and simply relaxing before it was back to the grind!
Now the holiday season is in full swing and I’m ecstatic. We already have a pretty full calendar, but I’m stoked about it. Lots of fun times coming our way : )
Sorry for the lack of pictures, my camera suddenly stopped working : / It’s currently getting repaired at Best Buy…thankfully Ken got me an extended warranty : )
