The Griswald Thanksgiving

We went to The Neighbors house for Thanksgiving dinner this year after starting off the day with mimosas in my favorite glasses. Unlike the year we made the turkducken this year was less complicated - in theory. However when you have 11 adults, 5 children, and 2 newborns there is a certain level of chaos, debauchery and mayhem. There was also enough food to feed a small army.

Here are just a few pictures from the evening. My brother Mike and Ana digging into the sangria.


Ironically, Caroline wore this t-shirt five Thanksgivings again while pregnant with her first, Alexis. She bought it in a mall in Bahrain and it was obviously not translated correctly. It reads, "Who's The Daddy?"


Chris' sister was in with her newborn. The last time we saw her was when I posed this important Trivia Question. Can you solve the riddle?


The empty seat and plate belonged to someone who may or may not write on this blog and thought about her stomach first, blog/photos second.

Supervising the after-dinner cocktails.

Remember, No One Diets on Thanksgiving. I hope you had a great one!

A Favorite Thing - Dancing Naked Lady Glasses

When I first moved to this area after graduating from college, I knew no one. To get on the right path, I joined the Virginia Tech alumni association because if you're a Hokie, you're automatically in the cult.


Tim and I met shortly before the alumni attic pollyanna gift exchange and agreed to be my date for the evening. The idea was to bring junk a halfway decent thing laying around your house that you wanted to get rid of so you could bring home someone else's junk halfway decent item as a replacement.


Tim and I strategically fought and brought home The Dancing Naked Lady Glasses.

Historically, we bust them out while drinking mimosas. During this past Thanksgiving holiday weekend they were on display and in use quite a bit. For those who don't follow me on twitter, I teased about them quite a bit.

Wordless Wednesday (almost) - No One Diets on Thanksgiving

In the great words of Erma Bombeck:

No One Diets on Thanksgiving
What we're really talking about is a wonderful day set aside on the fourth Thursday of November when no one diets. I mean, why else would they call it Thanksgiving?

Happy Thanksgiving! I hope you have a wonderful holiday with great food, family and friends. Please remember those serving our country overseas.

This cheesy picture was taken after Troy opened his presents last week.

Post It Note Tuesday

Taking a cue from SupahMommy, participating in Post It Note Tuesday.

Troy's 3rd Birthday Party

Before everyone arrived at Troy's third birthday party this weekend, he told me he was excited about his party because he got presents.

Unlike last year, he didn't need much help opening presents.


Caroline made the very impressive train cake complete with green rice krispie grass on the sides.


The potential ax murderer didn't show up with wine but it was a great party with friends and family. Thanksgiving is in a few days and I can officially start freaking out that Christmas is just over five weeks away and I've only bought a few gifts.

Flashback Friday (part 39) - The Day I Became A Mom

Celebrating Troy's third birthday this week had me naturally reminiscing about the day he was born and I became a mom. I look back at the pictures and it's really hard to believe that he's three.


I'm not going to bore entertain you with the story of my pregnancy or labor but I will say this, I had a very happy pregnancy til I hit full term at 40 weeks. It wasn't until I was a day shy of 42 weeks that Troy was finally born and that was after being induced, in labor for 38+ hours and they finally pulled him out by his big noggin'.



I couldn't have been more happy.



However, we were both exhausted.



I still can't get enough of looking at his face. I wanted a healthy baby with blue eyes, curly hair, freckles and a dimple like his Dad and I got it.

It was a great day to finally meet him.


Now it's your turn.

Find an old picture and share a story about it or why you wanted to share it now. Flashback Friday has no real rules other than to have fun. Please share the link in comments to your actual post and not main blog below for others to find you.

If you'd like the button, here's the code to include. There's a square option to your left as well.

 

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My Baby is Three

My baby Troy turned three yesterday, eight months after I turned thirty-three. For those of you who know us, we did not serve him sloppy joes and French fries either although it was tempting.

I took cupcakes into his daycare class but saved one for last night. Icing space was limited so that's why there is only one candle.

We're having a party for him on Saturday where he'll have a "real" cake.

Where did the time go? It's an easy choice for Flashback Friday this week, Troy's birth day.

An Unwelcome Guest

Last week after four straight days of rain due to the Nor'easter that rolled into town and met up with the artist formally known as Hurricane Ida, there was an unwelcome guest in the area.

This barge.

This barge is 570 feet (almost two football fields) and those containers on the top are what you typically see being pulled by 18 wheelers on the highway. This is a huge ship.

It was being towed and got loose during the storm and ended up on Sandbridge Beach which is located in the southeastern part of Virginia Beach. I live in the same town but about as far as you can get from this area.

The waves remind me of Hurriance Bill (not so much) that went by in late August.

Photo stolen courtesy of my friend who lives in that neck of the woods.

Flashback Friday (part 38) - Football Hero

Two months ago we watched Cary play in his high school varsity game. I took a lot of pictures you can see here of us being athletic supporters. As I was looking through some old pictures I found this gem from 2000, when he was eight.


I love the gappy smile.

This past weekend Cary's high school team was losing in the fourth quarter. He caught the onside kick and ran down to the 5-yard line that set up his team to score a touchdown and win the game.
He was interviewed by major city newspaper and as a representative of his Catholic high school, here is my favorite quote in the article,  

"I saw my boy 'Thomas' just get drilled by like three guys and the ball just came right into my hands. I just jumped up, took off and ran like hell.”

It still makes me laugh.

Now it's your turn.

 Find an old picture and share a story about it or why you wanted to share it now. Flashback Friday has no real rules other than to have fun. Please share the link in comments to your actual post and not main blog below for others to find you.

If you'd like the button, here's the code to include. There's a square option to your left as well.


 

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The Beach Version of a "Snow Day"

A Nor'ester is hitting Virginia Beach and the surrounding areas right now. If the temperature were cooler we'd be buried in snow but as is the case the rain continues to fall and the winds are whipping at gusts up to 50 mph.

Here's a view from my front bay window of the rain blowing sideways as the rest spills over the gutters and down the window panes.

As a result, roads are flooding and there is coastal flooding which has resulted in schools being cancelled. We're getting as much rain as we did with Hurricane Isabel in September 2003 which caused us to lose power for five days of hell.

Sometimes the county officials have jumped the gun on these cancellations as they did on Inauguration Day earlier this year. Classes were called off the night before to avoid panic before the snow fell. Here is a picture of the snow taken from my front door.

I'm just glad Troy is in daycare so we don't have to worry about make-up days before we go on vacation in June to the Outer Banks. Is it summer yet?

Wordless Wednesday - A Room With a View

The autumn air has been quite nice lately and we've had the front door open. This always seems to bring the Curious George out of Troy.




Last year it was a different view.

For more Wordless Wednesdays visit 5 Minutes for Mom and for more Wordful Wednesdays visit Seven Clown Circus.

Life Lesson

Recently we painted our dining room and hallway and are now in the process of painting our main living room. Unlike doing two complete bathroom remodels, painting is much easier although the process is too slow to meet my instant gratification needs.

Since I had painting ADD while doing the trim, I thought I'd spell out Troy's name to see how long it took him to notice.

Answer: 5 seconds

Flashback Friday (Part 37) - The Greatest Thing Since Sliced Bread

Eleven years ago, I was only six months out of college and went back to Blacksburg to drink cheap beer visit my best friend CC who was still living there. Since it was Halloween weekend, we had to dress up and hit our favorite watering holes.

She had the great idea to dress up like two slices of bread.

We spent the morning spray painting and assembling our costumes even though we had been out til 4 a.m. the night before.

It was the most fun I'd ever had at Halloween because we spent the night "sandwiching" people in their costumes.

A guy dressed up like French fries, we'd yell "Sandwich!" Then we'd get on either side and squeeze him. Someone dressed up like Frankenstein, we'd yell "Sandwich!" and do it again. At one point a guy was hitting on CC and her response was "Sorry dude, we have enough cheese in this sandwich."

The only challenge was when we started to play pool and had to drop our bread slices to shoot. Otherwise, it was a great time even up to the point someone took a bite out of my costume as the bars were closing.

Now it's your turn.

Find an old picture and share a story about it or why you wanted to share it now. Flashback Friday has no real rules other than to have fun. Please share the link to your actual post and not main blog below for others to find you.

If you'd like the button, here's the code to include. There's a square option to your left as well.




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Wordless Wednesday - My Vote Counts

Yesterday was election day and I voted. The election message of our carpool traveled to Blacksburg last week to watch the Hokies play.


It worked too. Remember, we tailgated with Governor-elect McDonnell during the first football game at Old Dominion University in September not that he put that tidbit on His blog. Ahem.

What? You didn't have a dog pulling a cart for Halloween?

Tradition continued this year with trick-or-treating in our neighborhood with The Neighbors. This year there was a slight twist. Instead of pulling the wagon like we did last year with the kids in it, we used the dog. Plus, it freed up our hands to drink beer take pictures.

Eli is their 180 pound English mastiff dog who had a custom cart made by Chris. He normally saves his energy for molesting harassing my 52 pound yellow lab Sandy when she visits but not this time.

The kids enjoyed trick or treating and at one point when we were doubling back, we put them in the cart next to the cooler.

The wheels didn't sustain the extra weight but Eli pushed on.

Besides comments about how cute the kids were in their costumes I heard a lot of people saying..."Is that a dog pulling a cart?"

Next year I think we need to put antlers on his head and give him a light up red nose.

Til next Halloween...The End.


Is it time for Thanksgiving yet?