Thanksgiving...a much needed/enjoyed break

This Thanksgiving (like those in years past) we spent here in Kentucky with friends. Unfortunately it is just too short a break and too expensive to really go anywhere.  And since we wanted to be able to travel over Christmas/New Year's I decided to make Thanksgiving the winter holiday that I worked. My parents drove to Utah to spend the weekend with my sisters, so I missed out on some good family time there and also over this break missed my 10 year high school reunion! (yes, that officially makes me feel crazy old...) I've come to realize that high school reunions aren't like they used to be though, with facebook now, there really are no surprises, so I wasn't that sad to miss out on it.

For Thanksgiving dinner, we went over to Ben and Carly's and enjoyed an enormous feast with their family and Travis and Beth. As is common with meals like these, we had way too much food, but it was all SO delicious. Here are Grant and I after dinner (next to the thankful tree-where we all wrote things on leaves we were thankful for and then the kids read them off after dinner)...on this day in particular, I was extremely grateful for a healthy body that allowed me to go on a long run in the morning before consuming a delicious meal. I am extremely grateful also for family and friends who make life so much fun and are there as support always.
As I mentioned above, Thanksgiving was my holiday to work. Day shift was already full when I requested, so I agreed to work night (7p-7a).  I was a little nervous about trying to figure out when to sleep, etc. but I think I made it work.  I attempted to take a short nap around noon on Thanksgiving day (but I wasn't very tired so I had a hard time sleeping) but I just went in thinking I only had to make it through the night and then I could sleep all day Friday.
My shift started out busy...hair went up immediately upon walking on the floor as a code was coming in... the night was full of thanksgiving-related "emergencies" (remember to completely chew your food when eating large meals...) and I surprisingly felt pretty good until about 4:15 am. I took my lunch break then (where I then ate a second Thanksgiving dinner-we had a work potluck and that was really more food than we could have ever eaten!) I filled up my cup with Diet Coke in a desperate attempt to stay awake, and then around 5 we had a little more excitement and I was good for the rest of the night. Grant picked me up in the morning and we headed to one store and then I came home and crashed for several hours!

I brought rolls and a dessert for the potluck.

As mentioned, I spent most of Friday sleeping and recovering, so Saturday we went out and did some shopping, bought our Christmas tree and decorated our house for the season! One day I hope to go to a Christmas tree farm and cut down our tree again (like I did growing up), but for now, Lowe's continues to provide us with quality trees at our discounted military price ;)


My favorite part of moving is decorating a new house in each season. There are obviously parts of our other house that I miss since I had certain decorations that went in certain places, etc. However, I was SO excited to get to use these cool glass drops here this year. I bought them after Christmas at Pier 1 about 6 years ago and hadn't used them yet (I knew they could be cool but didn't have the right spot). And this shelf over the table was my inspiration this year, I love it!