Thanksgiving

We packed up the pups and ourselves and drove over to St. Louis to see Jeff's family for the Thanksgiving holiday and weekend. We arrived a couple of hours before dinner which allowed us to get settled in before the house was invaded by all of Jeff's relatives. We had a nice dinner together, and then spent a couple of hours chatting and looking through old photo albums together before everyone headed home for the night.

Errol in his Thanksgiving garb

Aunt Mary Jane gets the pie fixins ready

Jeff's mom, Bev, with Errol and Jeff

Aunt Lynn, Nikki with Cousin Brad, Grandma A, Ken (Jeff's Dad), and Uncle Larry

Cousin Steve and his wife, Joyce, with Errol

Jeff and Grandma J

Fang sports a Thanksgiving bandanna

On Friday, Jeff and I got up early to go into the city to visit a couple of stores to look at plates and to visit our wine storage locker. Yes, we were aware of the potential dangers of shopping for plates on Black Friday, but it really wasn't so bad. The first place we stopped was a mall to visit Pottery Barn. We parked pretty close because it wasn't crowded at all, waltzed right in to inspect the plates, and waltzed right on back out. We had an appointment with our wine locker guy after that, and it only took about 10 minutes to clear out our locker and we were on our way again, this time over to Crate and Barrel. We parked close again, and the store wasn't crowded at all, so we were able to find our plates and get help ascertaining if they had anything in stock. They didn't, but we were able to at least see the plates we thought we wanted, determine that we did want them, and then order them when we got back home (they should arrive on Tuesday, yay!).

We got back to Jeff's parents' house in the middle of the afternoon and sorted our wine into smaller boxes for transport back home. Then we headed out again for a nice dinner at Annie Gunn's with Jeff's parents. We try to take them out when we visit over the holidays as a Christmas gift to them. We had a good time at dinner and the food was delicious.

Jeff's parents, Bev and Ken, open their 2009 puppy calendar

Ken waits patiently for dinner

Saturday morning was spent at the gym (had to work off those giant steaks from the night before). After that, we were invited over to one of Jeff's friend's parents' house to watch the KU-Mizzou football game, so we went over there at about 11:30. His friend, David, is married (to Janet) and has two cute daughters (Cora and Lucy), one of whom we hadn't met before, so it was fun to catch up with them, as well as with Brian, the older brother, and Sandy and Lawson, the parents. We got to watch the game in HD on a 50" or so television, which was cool. I think we'd be all over getting one of those if we didn't already have three perfectly funtioning old-school tv's and one living room that I'm not so sure I want to have to redecorate/rearrange to accommodate a huge television. Oh, and we're too cheap to upgrade our cable to get all the HD channels... :) Anyway, KU won the game, which was a pleasant surprise for two of us, and a disaster for the rest of the group. Ha ha.

Cora, David, Lucy and Jeff

Sandy and Cora (Grandma and Granddaughter, aww!)

Saturday night was spent over at Jeff's Grandma J's house for dinner and conversation with her and his aunt, Mary Jane. Mary Jane smoked her famous ribs for dinner and we had a traditional bbq meal with cole slaw and potato salad. Jeff's mom made a cake to share for dessert.

Sunday was spend with Jeff's Grandma A. We ate out for lunch and then spent the afternoon back at his parents' house with her. We snuck in another trip to the gym that afternoon and rounded out the evening watching a movie.

We drove back home on Monday on a really, really, really cold and windy day. We brought our winter coats with us, but managed to forget gloves and hats and scarves. Our rest area visit to walk the dogs was not a pleasant experience. Thank goodness for seat heaters in the car! We made it home in time to get in a trip to the grocery store and a couple of loads of laundry before we started the work week.