Grateful for Thanksgiving

I love the Holidays!! Everything about them thrills me... even the busy streets and crazy shopping lines. Thanksgiving came and went so fast and I can't believe Christmas will be here in 20 days! We have so much to look forward to. Even though there are a lot of things I'm excited for, here are my top ten:

10. Driving around with hot chocolate to see Christmas lights

9. Going to the Nutcracker (twice this year...one for Ballerina Lex and one for little 2 year old Jos who will do the Chinese dance this year--I'm warning you all now: it will be darling so just wait for a video of it to be put up)

8. Wrapping presents

7. Hale Center Theater's 'Christmas Carol' with the whole fam

6. Putting up our tree--that's our task this weekend

5. Watching Christmas Story, Christmas Vacation, and all time favorite...Preacher's Wife

4. Stories on Christmas Eve

3. Mom's toffee and fudge (yes Mom, you may take this as a hint if you'd like)

2. Matchy Matchy Christmas jammies

And the top 1 thing I'm most excited for is......

1. Our first Christmas with Michael!!!

Before I get too far ahead though, I'll tell you about our Thanksgiving. Wednesday I ran errands and Steve and I cleaned the house. That evening we all went to see the movie Four Christmases. It was darling. We hadn't been to a movie for months so it was a very welcomed invite. We took Michael who experienced licorice for the first time. When we left he and Steve's coat were covered in red licorice. He was happy though. Then we went to Brick Oven for dinner. Perfect way to start the holiday break.

Thursday the plan was to go to Poppy and Nana's at 1 for dinner. My assignment was to bring drinks--tough one right? Well I had cold water bottles (per Abbie's request) but also got the suggestion from mom to bring the small, individual bottles of Martinellis. However, I couldn't find them anywhere so Thursday on our way out we decided to stop and get some pop cause you can't wash turkey and potatoes down with water. It would be un-American! We stopped at Maceys and Steve ran in. I was the lucky one to sit in the car and observe the free entertainment. Here's what happened: Maceys decided to close at 1 which was about ten minutes after Steve ran in. I was amused as I watched a young teenage kid patrol the door. He closed the doors and stood outside and would only open the door for people leaving the store. However I watched in utter hilarity as a tiny old man pushed his cart up to the door, argued with the teenage boy, literally pushed the boy aside, opened the door, and pushed his way right on through the exiting customers while the boy stood there in exasperation. Neither he nor I could believe the nerve of that old man. He just wouldn't take no for an answer I guess. I'm assuming he had been sent on a Thanksgiving 'emergency' errand for something like cranberries from his wife at home, who I would bet is just as ornery and old as he was, and he didn't want to go home to her empty handed. Some people just can't do without their cranberries I guess!! Eventually, Steve made it out of the crowded store and we were on our way.

When we arrived we took some pictures and then finally "cut the turkey." Dinner was delicious as usual. Thanks mom and dad for all your hard work in preparing the great food and festive Thanksgiving ambiance! Thanksgiving dinner was a delight!


Once dinner was through, we all set to work rockin' out on Josh and Abbie's Xbox on RockBand. We were quite the success "on the road" making a whole $15! Thanks to Poppy and Nana being great sports we were all able to participate. We all pretty much think we're "the best guitar player in the world--self taught--no thanks to you Pops!" -Wedding Singer


Okay mom wasn't that great of a sport because she made us promise not to put up her RockBand pics on our blogs. So here's a pic of Abbie helping Mom on the drums (minus mom).

After we were all rocked out, we pulled out the ads to see if there were any Black Friday Bargains worth going out early in the morning for--there wasn't! So after a day full of fun and family we went home.

Oh but that wasn't the end of our Thanksgiving... we went home to pack for Colorado. All of Esplin side of the family had gathered in Delta for Thanksgiving. We figured it would take us an hour to pack and we would make it to Colorado by midnight. Well we forget how long packing takes when you have a baby. We didn't end up leaving until ten. We debated whether or not to wait until morning but Michael was already asleep and we figured we might as well so we'd be there for the family events the next day. It was nice to sit and just talk with Steve for 4 straight hours because we never have very much time to do that anymore. We arrived about 230 to welcome arms and smiling faces who should've been in bed hours before that. Here are some pics of Delta, Colorado:


We stayed in Delta with Mark and Laura! We really appreciate their hospitality and how welcoming they are to us. Saturday afternoon we left Delta and went with Steve's parents and sisters to Ouray, Colorado. I drove so Steve could have a break. It was such a beautiful drive. It's a really pretty area. When we arrived in Ouray it was snowing really hard. It was the first hard snowfall I'd seen for the year. We checked in to our cute little hotel and changed to go swimming. Yes swimming while it's snowing outside!! In Ouray they have these natural hot springs all over the city. So they have a public pool but it's warm all year round. It's like a giant hot tub. It's divided into different section and each section is a different temperature. So we put our coats over our swimsuits and headed for the pool.

If you look in the background you can see the snow on the rooftops and mountains. It was crazy. I was really hesitant about putting Michael in the water. Steve convinced me he'd be fine because it was just a big warm bathtub. (Yeah it might be but when have you ever taken a bath outside in freezing temperatures with snow sporadically falling?) Needless to say, we went ahead and put him in. He loved it! He absolutely loves having a bath but he loved having everyone else in the "bath" with him. He just splashed and kicked the whole time. He thought it was hilarious. After swimming, we got ready and went to dinner.

The next day we took family pictures for Steve's family's Christmas card. We also took some of just the three of us. It was pretty much a circus because it was freezing and snowing and the wind was blowing really hard. Michael was such a sport though. Here are the pics even though
not very many of them turned out.

All in all it was a great break away from work and school. It was so hard to come back to teaching on Monday. I can't wait until Christmas break when I have over two weeks away from school. Anyway hope everyone's Thanksgiving was as enjoyable as ours!!