Black Friday!!

Yesterday was a wonderful day with Justin's family. Everyone was there and as usual there was food galore! Every year I tell myself I am not going to overdue it on the food. I think I did better this year, but I still think I ate more than I needed to. Justin's fried and smoked turkey was a big hit. After we ate, all the women, girls and Taylor (my nephew) went for a walk to try to burn some of the calories we had just taken in. I thought I would be a really cool aunt and race my niece Kenzie across the parking lot of Chisholm High School and as soon as I took off running I pulled a ham string in my right leg. OUCH!!(I guess I need to realize I'm not as young as I used to be!) YOU WIN, YOU WIN was the only thing that would come out of my mouth. After the walk we sat around the table and played games. It was a really good day and we enjoyed being together.

This year I decided I would venture out on Black Friday! I have NEVER done this before, because I have a real patience and irritability issue about crowds. However, I had spotted a really good deal in a circular for something I had been pricing for my boys and would be able to save a substantial amount on this item. So, Mom, Sara and I decided we would give it a try. Sara was to pick us up at 5:15 which was a real stretch for all of us. We are not morning glories. When we were coming into Enid and saw the Wal-Mart parking lot I said "keep driving, I'm thinking I don't need anything that bad." So we went on to the mall and Old Navy, got what we needed and then decided we would give it a try again. We had seen some people we new at the mall and they said everything was already gone, so I wasn't having a lot of hope about the items I was after. We got back there about 7:30 and to our amazement it was any more crowded than it would be on a normal day. I just new what I was looking for would already be gone, but it wasn't. They had a whole stack of this particular thing. Mission accomplished!!! We ended our shopping excursion with breakfast at IHOP and was home by 10:30. From now on, I see no reason to get up that early and fight the crowds. Let them fight amongst themselves and I'll wait until 8:00 and have the store almost to myself! The only issue was the above mentioned ham string pull. I was so stiff I could hardly walk! Live and learn.

Twas the night before Thanksgiving!

Twas the night before Thanksgiving and Chef Justin is choking us out of the house. His mother asked us to fry a turkey for the dinner tomorrow, so he likes to marinate them over night. The smell of the spices he put together started getting in our nose and then settling in our throat and we all started coughing. It took awhile before it settled down, but I think we are starting to get back to normal. I'm really looking forward to tasting the bird. He is trying a different recipe this year that he picked up off the Food Network. I realize frying a turkey is not the healthiest way to eat it, but boy, is it ever delicious! We are deep frying two turkeys and smoking a turkey breast. In addition to that, Justin never got his favorite birthday cake this year. It is also Tyler's favorite, and since his birthday was last Friday, I decided to make it to take and hopefully there won't be any left to bring home. It is really yummy, home made, scratch German Chocolate Cake. This is their requirements: It has to be round and 3 layers, with homemade frosting. My family is spoiled. I can't imagine who started that!

We had a good day today. Emma and Ella stayed with Tyler and I and we spent the day watching Kung Fu Panda, coloring ( I found some really cool coloring pages of a turkey on the internet. I got the site from Marybeth Whalens blog.) and just general wrestling. They were begging to watch Frosty the Snowman, but we've already seen it several times and I'm already a little tired of it. Hunter is still not feeling well so he stayed home with his daddy today.

Hope everyone has a really good Thanksgiving day tomorrow with family and friends!
God Bess You All!!

Day 1: Starting from Scratch!

Well, here goes. I've been reading other blogs and have really enjoyed it, so I decided to give it a try. I've never been much on journaling or writing, but I started in August after I found out I would be going on the Mission trip to Uganda. I decided it might be faster and easier to blog instead of writing everything out by hand. I was really wanting to keep track of everything that happened between now and then, so I could look back and see how God put everything together. It's only been a short time and already I am amazed at the way God is working. Not only about the mission trip, but also through Women's Bible studies and it seems every area of my life.

Tyler will be coming home today for Thanksgiving. It will be good to have him home. He hasn't been home for a month. Daniel will be here Thursday morning and will meet us at Justin's folks house. It's been almost two months since he has been home. I really have missed them both and I'm looking forward to spending time together as a family and catch up on what's been going on.

Today Ella and I have been hanging out. She is so much fun! Hunter didn't get to come today, since he was running a fever when he got up today. Ella has been missing him terribly. She keeps asking "Where's Hunter?" I hope he feels better by tomorrow. Emma will be here after school in just a few minutes, so I better wrap this up for now. We will need to spend some one on one time since Ella is taking a nap right now.