Hope you had a Happy Thanksgiving!

Hello everyone!

I've been busy cooking, eating, shopping, and having LOTS of fun with my family. I wanted to fill you in on some events of the past few days. The pilgrims themselves came to have Thanksgiving Dinner with us.

This was our first Thanksgiving that it was just us. Last year I had a friend from High School and her mother come join us for a late dinner. My friend is vegan, so she doesn't eat any animal products. It was quite an experience to have Thanksgiving dinner sans animal products, but we did it, complete with stuffing, sweet potatoes, and pumpkin pie. I even made an acorn squash risotto that was different, but delicious.

This year was all about a "normal" Thanksgiving dinner. Michael took care of the turkey, and I made stuffing, mashed potatoes, cranberry sauce, sweet potato casserole, green bean casserole, gravy, apple pie, and individual pumpkin cheese cakes. We also had store bought rolls and jellied cranberry sauce. Here's the spread.

We had a wishbone left over from LAST Thanskgiving that a friend gave us (since we didn't have our own turkey). The kiddos broke it. AJ's wish will come true. The next day, while in Gatlinburg, DJ needed extra pennies to throw into a wishing well since AJ won the wishbone-break.

Some people don't believe me, but Michael and I both love to go shopping on Black Friday! I got up at 6:15 and got breakfest ready for everyone to eat while running out the door or once in the car, we woke the kids up at 7, and we were on our way by 7:30. We made stops at Staples, K-mart, Goodys, and Wal-mart. We returned home for a lunch feast of leftovers, and then headed down to Gatlinburg for the rest of the day.

We went to the Star Cars Museum. Here is Bumblebee from Transformers. They had the car from Dukes of Hazard, the wagon from the Beverly Hillbillies, the Flintstones vehicle, the Delorian from Back To The Future, and Michael Keaton's Batmobile to name a few.

We ate dinner at the Smoky Mountain Brewery and then slowly made our way back out of Gatlinburg, stopping several times to check out the awesome light displays.

I hope your weekend has been full of opportunities to give thanks for all the blessings in your life.

Sweet wishes!