Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving was a blast. It's one of my favorite holidays since my birthday either lands on it or right near it. Jeff's parents came to Texas to celebrate with us, and Jeff's sister and her family came up to visit as well. Our little house was full to the brim, but it was a lot of fun. Except for the second night of a full house when Tristan was sad from an ear infection. Poor little guy.

Aside from that everything went pretty smooth.  The turkey turned out beautiful, we baked it upside down and it was crazy juicy.  It won the Jeff "Seal of Approval" as turkey is one of his favorite dishes.  I even enjoyed it and I am not a huge fan of plain old baked turkey.  We also had green bean casserole, 2 kinds of cranberries, sweet potatoes, stuffing. and you name it.  We had had it.  The night before I baked 3 pies and a giant pan of pecan pie bars.  They were so dang good.   Probably because they were 90% sugar. 

Friday the girls went shopping and the boys and kids went to the park. Shopping was probably the most fun.  I finally got Photoshop Elements.  I went to a photography conference in NYC in August, and every professional there said they used Elements more than anything else, and that Photoshop is great but the average person doesn't need it.  Once I have time between church, my other blog and life in general I will install it and see what it can do.  I have kind of enjoyed not having any real editing programs for my photos.  It really makes me work on getting things right in the camera and not just relying on fixing them later.  Huge time saver, too.  I look at pictures now and know that I can basically crop, lighten, and crop.  If it needs more than that I just think, "Too bad!"  I know I'd get obsessed with playing in Photoshop and I don't have time for that!

We really, really loved having Jeff's family here.  Teresa and I couldn't stop laughing, we loved shopping, everything was just a ton of fun.  Jeff had a blast with his family, too. I don't think he realizes how much he misses them.   Is he not just stunning in this photo?  There are like 10 of these and I want to frame all of them.



Oh these two dogs.  Sushi ended up at our house for the week. Long story short, but it involves a new gun and lots of driving.  They were the clean up crew, the entertainment.  They even learned how to play tug of war with each other.  My sweet little nephew cried when he left because he was going to miss them.  Not us.  The dogs.  They loved him right back, it was sweet.  I had to laugh the other day when I saw a pin that said, "Oh, so you don't like dogs?  Well, enjoy your life without a soul."  These hairy animals bring so much laughter and joy into the home. 

Anyway, it was a beautiful Thanksgiving.