Happy Thanksgiving! What a wonderful Holiday week. Our weather was beautiful. Allison came home on Tuesday evening. Scott had two half days of school and was off from Weds to Friday. So the whole family had time to spend together. And we certainly filled up our time with lots of activities!  I worked most of the week and Tom took time off. He finished his last class and was glad to have some free time with the kids and with his video games!  He did take Scott out for driving practice to a nearby church to drop off some cookies. Scott earned some NHS volunteer hours for donating cookies to a church sponsored Thanksgiving meal for the homeless. So he was doing a good deed and getting in lots of driving practice around some winding roads through the woods. Scott and Tom also took advantage of the good weather to put up our outside Christmas lights over the weekend before the rain. I see lights are popping up all over the neighborhood, along with a few Christmas trees.

I was sad to see all the Fall/Thanksgiving decorations put away. I think  Thanksgiving is my most favorite holiday. It brings family together, and it is fun to sit down to a big meal without worrying about the presents. We hosted Thanksgiving dinner at our house for our family, along with my mom, our friend John D., Allison's boyfriend Tyler and his sister. 8 people fit very nicely around our kitchen table. Turns out Tyler's sister did not make it to dinner though since she wasn't feeling well. Maybe we'll catch her again some other time. Tyler would have been with his family except his parents had traveled to New Orleans to celebrate their wedding anniversary. So we were very happy to host and Tyler even baked chocolate chip cookies and made chex mix to go along with  our big dinner as well as contributing a bottle of wine.  I love having all the family helping to cook dinner. Tom was busy roasting our turkey on the grill. Allison and Scott were busy helping in the kitchen with loaded mashed potatoes, sweet potato casserole, stuffing, crescent rolls, green salad and fruit salad.  Needless to say we had plenty of food. We had so much food for dinner, none of us had any room for pie! Instead, we enjoyed Tyler's chocolate chip cookies!

Our guests arrived around 2pm. I picked up my mom, and Tyler drove down from his apt. Since the weather was so nice, Tyler, Allison and Scott decided to head out for a hike around the lake at the local park with Cookie. They were busy working up their appetites. We opted out of the local YMCA Turkey Trot in the morning. I decided we would be too busy getting ready for our dinner guests. I made some hot crab dip as an appetizer to keep guests busy while everything was in the oven. The "kids" stayed busy with computer games and we adults caught up with football games. After dinner, Scott asked if we could celebrate his Birthday a few days early since we had so many guests. Scott wanted a pecan pie which he got with a singing birthday candle. However, as I mentioned, we were all stuffed so we just munched on the cookies while he opened his gifts. Scott was very happy with lots of computer gifts and video games. Of course I had to pick up some warm clothes for him, and Tom found some good luck math socks to top off his new wardrobe, along with a couple of Western Michigan shirts. Scott used some of his birthday money to purchase a large hamburger backpack. It's a thing. He needed something to carry all his video gaming equipment to school for his weekly club. We had a wonderful dinner and enjoyed topping it off with Scott's 17th Birthday celebration. I spent the evening putting away all the leftover food, making Seitz casserole(leftover turkey and stuffing with gravy) and relaxing on the couch with chocolate chip cookies! I tried to talk my mom into starting her Christmas cards, but she was too tired. I put her to work in the kitchen as well! Tom gave her a ride home later in the evening.

With Turkey dinner and Birthday dinner out of the way it was time to get down to enjoying a relaxing weekend. On Friday Scott had to work in the afternoon. I ran some shopping errands while waiting for Scott to get off work so we could go see the new JK Rowling movie, "Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them". Tom opted out of this movie. We enjoyed our big bucket of popcorn. On Saturday morning, Allison and I were up early to attend the Christmas Tree Festival with my mom. I was singing at the event with my Girl Scout choir. While I was singing, Allison toured my mom around the decorated Christmas trees. All the trees and wreaths have theme decorations, like Mickey Mouse or Maryland theme trees and then they are auctioned off. The proceeds go to the local Children's hospital. After I finished singing I joined Allison and Mom to tour the trees, gingerbread houses and gift vendors. We stopped for lunch and enjoyed a few more Holiday shows on the main stage before heading home. Later that afternoon after Scott got off work, our family went to see the new Disney movie Moana with Tom along this time. We liked the movie, but it was no "Little Mermaid" or "Lion King". At least we got another big bucket of popcorn!

On Sunday I dragged the family off for our Christmas photo. I know that is not how Scott planned to spend his Birthday!   But he was a good sport and we all had fun with our photo session. Afterwards we headed to lunch at BWs(Buffalo Wild Wings) to officially celebrate Scott's birthday. We then headed home to pack up Allison with lots of Turkey leftovers and plenty of snacks to get her through the next few weeks to finals. Meanwhile, we took advantage of the good weather to finish putting up outside Christmas lights and raking leaves! I discovered that not all the leaves blew away. Instead, I found large piles hiding under bushes. I am sure I will have many more bags to fill, but at least we can say we are done cutting the grass!(probably).

On a sad note, we heard from Tom's family that his Aunt Mary passed away on Sunday. Sadly she had been suffering from Alzheimer's for many years, so in some ways it was a blessing. Her funeral will be in Richmond VA next weekend, but we don't think we can fit the trip into our busy schedule.