thanksgiving and the days that followed

I'm so sorry I haven't been posting. If you had told me, "Rachael you're going to be a stay-at-home-mom and your life is going to be hectic" 6 months ago, I wouldn't have believed you, but alas the days grow full and free time sparse.

The four days that encapsulates Thanksgiving might have been the longest two weeks of my life. Yeah I said that on purpose. I love my family very much, but I often struggle with tolerating them for long periods of time. I expressed to Dennis that I think my tolerance levels are depleting, even. Something about having children makes the little things about in-laws seem like big things. I constantly reminded myself that this was just a visit and it would be over soon.



Thursday morning, we did our traditional eggrolling contest which was prefaced by many weeks of smack talking and various betting. I lived up to my claims and won the contest by 3. I received an awesome massage from my darling sister, Donna, and all was well in my world.



Friday I went black Friday shopping, sorry there are no pictures. Danielle (pictured here) had to be at work at Kohl's at 3:45am and since Kohl's is the first place I like to go every year anyway, I took her to work and then took my post about 100 people back in line to get in to the store. Donna joined me shortly after and we waited about 20ish minutes to get in. Once in, with no apprehension on getting gifts or certain items or whatever, we casually perused the store while wild white-trash maniacs devoured under-priced toys and cheaply made comforters. My items of note:

1. Chutes and Ladders, Hi-ho Cheerio, and Candy Land all for under $4 each
2. a griddle for Donna and Kyle (the newlyweds) for $10
3. and a brother sewing machine for $60.

The sewing machine was an especially awesome find because I only knew it was there when the guy in check-out line behind me had 3. I asked if he had gotten the last of them to which he replied "yes, but they may have restocked" and sent me in their general direction. Sure enough, there were 2 left. After strongly considering both, I took only one and got back in line. For future reference, this was the worst part. We stood in line for checkout for an hour and a half and I know they had every single checkout line open. But we had some hilarious line mates whom we joked with about random items we passed as the line progressed, so all was well. At the end, I also received $20 Kohl's cash, which is as good as cash considering Kohl's is like heaven in a grey building.


Dennis joined in the fun and braved BestBuy at 5am. He got us a bluray player for like $180 and he got me a new bluetooth since mine bit the dust. I love my new bluetooth and we watched our bluray this morning and it is awesome. You could see fuzzies on the jacket of Deloris Umbridge in the Order of the Phoenix. Oh yeah, we also bought all 5 of the current Harry Potter movies at this awesome used DVD store we found in e-town.

By Saturday, we were ready to go home. Anakin kept saying "I want go bye-bye" and we knew it was time to head that way. We talked about leaving first thing Sunday morning at like 3am but quickly realized we couldn't possibly spend one more night in this god-forsaken town and we headed out at about 10:30pm. My awesome friend, Michelle, talked me all the way past Nashville (3 hours! what an awesome friend!) and when Dennis took over just before the mountains, we got some gas and popped in the last disc of Harry Potter. I laid back to sleep but found myself entranced in the book and mostly just laid with my eyes closed. We got home at 4:30am (6 hours exactly!) and rested in our own bed, thankful we missed the traffic and happy to have a day to rest before starting a new week. I can't believe we are planning on heading back to KY for Christmas and am instantly sorry these are the plans we've made. It's okay, family is family and someday I will be missing them and wishing the long holidays were here again. I was really reminded of this when, for some reason, I started missing my Aunt Paula so bad it ached. Not that we've ever spent Thanksgiving or Chistmas at her house in Florida, but just hat long trips used to take us different places. So this Thanksgiving I am thankful for family that drives me crazy. But I am very happy to be home.