See Ya Thanksgiving

Ugh. Time to get back to the real world. I say this every single Sunday night but I REALLY don't want to go back to work tomorrow. I have the hardest time getting motivated each week and it's especially hard after a holiday. We spent the last 4 days in Charlotte with Adam's family for a very relaxing Thanksgiving. We were lazy (maybe a little too lazy), we ate too much (even Denali helped himself to some of grandma Trees' homemade apple pie), shopped Black Friday madness (scored a printer and all 10 seasons of Friends), and caught up with family and friends. As always, I wish I could have spent Thanksgiving with both the Douglases and the Reusses and I'd like to say a happy belated birthday again to dad! Thanksgiving was great, but I'm ready to move on to Christmas! I feel like last year's Christmas FLEW by, so this year I am making a special effort to savor every minute:-) So after a great church service and an awesome lunch at Cracker Barrel, we put up our Christmas decorations! Granted the weather was about 65 and sunny here today, it was still fun! Here are some pictures:








I'm so afraid of making my house look tacky that sometimes I hold back even when I want to put something up:-) We put greenery on our railings outside and Adam is going to put up some icicle lights so we'll put some more pictures up of that when it happens:-)



Speaking of tacky, this is Adam's mullet shirt (party in the front, business in the back) :-) It was really an old tshirt I was cutting into a dusting rag but Adam felt the need to model it:-)

Family Bonding minus the husband

This past week I have been on a plane 4 times. My husband will have been on a plane twice and yet none of these trips have actually been made together. I was lucky enough to have my mom and my aunt Barb join me for a work conference in Chicago from Saturday to Tuesday and then Adam flew to Germany Wednesday until tomorrow. So instead of moping around Chester (:-)), I decided to head home to Cleveland. The weekend was action packed as always and I got to see most everyone I loved including Bam and my preggo friends. The weather was absolutely beautiful and so the fam took the opportunity to play a little tennis on Saturday afternoon. Scott & I lost to our parents. How pathetic is that?? I guess that's ok considering I have picked up a tennis racket twice this entire year. But by far, my favorite family bonding moment took place at 11:30pm Saturday night. I was coming home from Katie's house around 11 and I turned onto TN Nursery Rd (the road that takes me into the neighborhood), hitting a sewer/pothole thing on the way. I made it about 100 more feet and then realized I had a flat tire. Now it's a sad day when you are 2 miles from home and consider calling AAA over calling your father. So what do I do? Call my brother:-) And then we contemplate what to do, eventually deciding on calling mom and dad. There's nothing like family bonding having everyone standing outside, tired, cold, cranky, while watching dad change a tire:-) But it really was a great weekend. I'm thankful that I was able to come home and see everyone. Thanks mom and dad!