Thanksgiving

Oh my! Where to begin. What a busy week it has been since last Monday, and it did not start out all that great. My poor hubby spent last Monday getting rained on to turn paperwork into the health and human services so that we can get assistance, and in the meantime ended up misplacing important paperwork somewhere around town!!!! But all that aside, what a roller coaster of a ride it was!

Last Wednesday, we packed up and made our way to the bus to start an adventure that I had no idea where it was going to lead except to say that I knew we would be spending a few days with the hubby's aunt and grandparents somewhere on the other side of Dallas. We took two buses and then two trains to get there and were greeted by Aunt Debbie, and Grandma and Grandpa Green, and to our surprise, little 2 month old Payton in the car as well! (Good thing I packed light!) The drive from Dallas was not what I was expecting, not that I knew what it was that I was expecting. It felt like I was visiting my family in Illinois! The drive from Dallas to the "ranch" felt like the drive from St. Louis to Oakawville! When we arrived, it was quite peaceful, and honestly, I had no idea what to do, so I just went outside with the hubby and the kiddo to explore, we got up close and personal with a horse and a donkey, and Georgia was not afraid at all, in fact, she tried to feed the horse acorns! And then she discovered the trampoline, and from that point on all she wanted to do was play "exercise jump". Robert would get nervous when she got to close to the edge, which I found rather endearing since I didn't get nervous over it. But little did I realize that the peacefulness would disappear the next day, for with Thanksgiving came about 25 more individuals to this house. Those of you who know me well, know that I get slightly uncomfortable in situations where I am surrounded by a large amount of people, especially people I don't know. But I think I held it together rather well, in fact, I made great friends with one of the hubby's cousins (the mother of little Payton) and ventured out to my first black friday experience with her! Yes folks, I had managed to avoid any type of retail shopping on black friday for 31 years, but could not resist this year since we are on a budget and WalMart had deals that were very appealing to me, and I managed to complete all Christmas shopping for Georgia that night!

The return trip on Friday was uneventful, with the exception that now I was also balancing a large sack of my loot from black friday shopping! We arrived home in time to get refreshed and a little rest before the next wave. The stressful part of the holiday, the dreaded visit from my parents who I had not seen since moving to Texas. Robert was even nervous about it. But they showed up happy, took us out to the mall to see Georgia play with other kids then on to WalMart yet again and finally to dinner. They brought us back home after treating us to Georgia's favorite treat of ice cream cones, and went to their hotel for the night. The following day, they showed up bearing gifts of a Christmas tree and ornaments and a KFC lunch. They left in the early afternoon since they were going back to my sister's in Lubbock. And we finally rested on Sunday! Stayed in our Pajamas most of the day and watched nothing but Christmas movies on the computer. So all in all, it was an awesome first Thanksgiving as the Houston clan!