Thanksgiving Tour of Texas 2012

Thanksgiving this year was just like every other. We went too many places and ate too much food. Our Thanksgiving journey started on Wednesday when we traveled to Sinton (with a pit stop in Refugio to pick up Jimmy's great aunt) to have our first Thanksgiving lunch with Jimmy's mom and grandparents. Normally the list of attendees also includes Aunt Ashley, but she was not able to break away from her retail internship in California. To commemorate her absence (and the absence of her pies, homemade rolls and cranberry relish) Jimmy spent the day sending her pictures with sad faces. I'm only putting a few below so I don't get in (too much) trouble. But lunch was wonderful and we all willingly had yummy left overs for dinner. The meal consisted of turkey, cranberry dressing, green beans (with bacon and Rotel), sweet potatoes, fruit salad, cranberry sauce (ridges lovingly shaped by Grandpa), dinner rolls and giblet gravy. Dessert was a pumpkin roll made by Lori. The biggest problem of the day was that I took zero pictures of the feast, but I did get some pictures of Nathan (and Bella).

"WHERE ARE YOU?!"

"Where is your cranberry relish!?"

"There are no pies."

Nathan and Popo looking outside for Lucky (Lolo's dog).

Bella supervising Lori washing the dishes.

Such a shock, another picture with Popo.  Those two are attached at the hip!

Christmas preview #1

Christmas preview #2

Hanging out with Popo...again!

Wednesday morning we were treated to a breakfast of bacon and eggs (and tortillas from the Sinton bakery) before we hit the road again for Bishop and my grandmother's house. We were actually the first ones to arrive besides Aunt Connie and Mark (who had arrived the day before). We actually came startlingly close to having the whole family together this year. In attendance we had Uncle Roy and his clan (Brandi, Cody, Trey and Heather), Kelley and the kids, mom, Cantrell and grandma Bryan, Aunt Connie and Mark, Nicole and Gregory. We were missing Chris and Crystal to work schedules, Kim and her crew in Austin and Makayla at her Lala's. We were all making the special effort this year because my cousin Trey (Roy's youngest) joined the Marines and leaves for boot camp in mid December. I haven't spent much time around Trey in several years and our age difference was such that we never really had much to talk about other than the obligatory cousin hug and "how are you?" So much to my surprise he's all grown up and actually seems ready to join our country's armed forces. Fancy that.


Thanksgiving #2 was almost catered by the Bishop Dairy Queen. By about noon we realized that the turkey wasn't fully cooked due to an element being out in my grandma's oven. So we had several extra hours of cooking time before we were able to warm everything back up and actually have lunch. But eventually everything got cooked through and we were all able to sit down and enjoy our meal of turkey, dressing, cranberry sauce (ridges courtesy of Aunt Connie), sausage, broccoli salad, rolls, gravy and sweet potatoes. And because my family is made up of grazers we also had pickles, black olives and chips with pimento cheese (ew) out to snack on before and after. For dessert was pecan pie (made by Memaw), chocolate cheesecake and chocolate chip cookies.

While we were in Bishop the kids enjoyed playing outside with sidewalk chalk, bubbles and a croquet set my grandmother has for some strange reason. Inside there were Legos and other puzzles to take apart and put halfway together again. Most of the group was inside watching the Texans football game while the rest sat out on the back porch watching the munchkins run around. Did I mention that it was over 80 degrees outside? Such nonsense for Thanksgiving day.

We drove straight home late morning on Friday with a stop for lunch at Whataburger in Edna. When we got home we discovered that the cats protested our travel by throwing up everywhere, both upstairs and down. Welcome home! Spot cleaning such a disaster was just too daunting to think about, so Jimmy went to HEB to rent a carpet cleaner. We cleaned the downstairs Friday evening and did the upstairs Saturday morning before leaving for Cynthia and Bill's house (and by "we" I mostly mean Jimmy). And that brings me to Thanksgiving #3!

My dads side of the family (plus some) all got together in Houston this year at my cousins house. Kim, Kevin and the boys, Kelley and the kids (Chris was still working), Cantrell, mom, grandma, Uncle Skipper and Aunt Dayle, Tommy, Shirley, Tyler and Shirley's daughter Heather, her fiancé Jiles, Shirley's mom Dolores and Jiles' mom (I think, I never caught her name but she had an English accent so I made the guess), Travis, Jill and the girls and Cynthia and Bills housekeeper Sam and her son Samuel. That makes 30 people, including the seven kids!! Poor Pumpkin (Bill and Cynthia's dog) was a little overwhelmed by it all.

Lunch was amazing as expected with Skipper and Cynthia cooking. I'll list what I remember but there was So. Much. Food. Here goes: Fried turkey, stuffed pork loin, dressing, fresh fruit salad, green beans, roasted brussels sprouts, sweet potatoes, cranberry sauce (sans ridges), mashed potatoes and gravy, deviled eggs, and scratch made rolls. Dessert was pecan pie, strawberry pie, chocolate pie, peppermint bark, and chocolate chip brownies. Also pickled okra and pickles were out for snacking. Soooo good!

The kids enjoyed playing outside and busied themselves going up and down the many steps in Cynthia's house.  I jealously looked on while Chance and Tyley went down for naps.  We tried to get Nathan down with no luck.  But he was being good, so we didn't leave until close to 3:30pm.  As we were leaving we saw one of the wild peacocks wandering around the neighborhood.  He was so beautiful but didn't spread his tail for me. 

Nathan of course fell asleep on the way home and slept like a rock for 2 hours.  He was NOT in a good mood when we woke him up, but warmed up after watching Chance and Breydon run around and play with all his toys for a few minutes.  We took him up for bed a little later than usual that night, but not terribly late.  He went to sleep relatively easy and the grownups settled down to play some serious Phase 10. I had to leave the game early because I couldn't keep my eyes open any longer, but not before making a comeback in phases.  When I asked who won the next morning they confessed that they didn't continue playing, so I guess that means I won!

 All in all the weekend was filled with family, football and lots and lots of food.  I certainly felt like I needed a vacation after it was all said and done!  Just a few more weeks when we get to do it all again for Christmas.