2007 Thanksgiving Vacation – home for the holidays!

FRIDAY 11/16

Left on the redeye for Rochester. Justin got the most sleep of all of us, though I think a lot of it was just ignoring the “Loudtalker” family sitting behind us. It didn’t help that the plane had to make an emergency landing in Indianapolis to let off an ill passenger, but since our Philly connection had a 5+ hour layover, it all worked out OK in the end.

SATURDAY 11/17

Walked in to Ray & Sue’s (in-laws) at 1pm. Enjoyed catching up with them for a bit before unpacking and visiting Wegman’s for the ingredients to make my mom’s birthday dinner. I made Balsamic Chicken with a tossed salad and bakery fresh sesame bread, with a raspberry ganache chocolate cake for dessert (purchased, not made, but simply delicious!). It was nice to catch up with her and Dave, and just spend a quiet night with them and Terry’s parents.

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SUNDAY 11/18

Sunday before church I took some photos of the fall trees in Terry’s parents’ yard. They were falling so fast – like rain! When we got home from church there were hardly any left – amazing! I was a special guest singer at the Church of the Transfiguration Choir thanks to my Father-in-Law. We made it just in time to join the first song, since the Pittsford turkey trot route delayed us. After church, we drove past my old high school, old house and through the neighborhood. It’s interesting to see the house you grew up in changed so much. They removed all the fencing and some of the trees, including the half dozen pines lining the driveway (actually I remember those were gone last time too). Instead of the white split level with black shutters I remembered, it is now a beige with light brown shutters – the same yet different.

Sunday afternoon we took a trip down to Watkins Glen to have a pre-Thanksgiving dinner at Terry’s Aunt Kathie & Uncle Chris’ house. Cousin Carol was also there, along with some of Chris & Kathie’s neighbors. Terry’s brother Todd and his wife Cyndy and stepson Bill (who’s now nearly 6 feet tall!) also drove down. The food was awesome and it was a lot of fun catching up with everyone. Eric and Justin got a kick out of the ping pong tournament going on in the basement. Sunday evening Terry met some friends out to watch the Bills game (what the heck happened there?) while I did some work on my laptop.

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MONDAY 11/19

Spent most of the day around the house then in the evening the four of us went to see our dear friend Shelly. On the way, we went by our old house in Greece. It was dark out, but it really looked the same as when we moved 6+ years ago. It was great to see Shelly and meet her new boyfriend Gary. She made a delicious lasagne for us. We also got to see how much her boys Justin and Kyle have grown up. This all makes me feel so old!

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TUESDAY 11/20

Terry took the kids and met his dad and brother out for lunch at Schaller’s. Meanwhile, I spent some time in the kitchen making Chicken Wing Dip for dinner at Mom’s. We trekked out to Avon to join her and Dave for a quasi-Christmas dinner of Steak Pie and some other goodies. Mom gave us our Christmas presents early, and after dinner we watched Deck the Halls. It was nice to spend time with Mom and Dave.

WEDNESDAY 11/21

We left for the 5-hour drive to Ohio right on schedule. Traffic was not too bad, and the weather was fine. By the time we rolled in to Sheri’s (Terry’s cousin) house, it was mid-afternoon. The kids had a great time with their cousins – I was amazed yet again at how much they have all grown. Terry’s cousin PJ was also there with his daughter Libby. One of the newest additions to Sherri’s family is Bentley, a 2-year-old black lab who is near about the world’s most perfect dog. I wanted to sneak him into our rented Trailblazer and bring him home! Terry’s brother Tom, his wife Margaret and their toddler son Luke came after dinner, followed by another brother Todd and nephew Bill. Terry and I stayed up playing Euchre and chatting until late in the evening – early morning actually.

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THURSDAY 11/22 – Happy Thanksgiving!

Weather was cold and wet, just like so many other Thanksgivings we had in Ohio. We pretty much just hung out at Sherri’s until mid-afternoon when we moved the party to Aunt Bobbie’s for turkey time. More cousins showed up for dinner, for a total of about 35 people in all! We had three turkeys and tons of food, but amazingly there weren’t many leftovers. It was fun playing cards and watching football, but of course we all ate way too much! Of course dinner was delicious but it all seemed to be over in an instant and we were back on the road to Sherri’s. After all the wine and beer we had, thank goodness Bill offered to be our DD!

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FRIDAY 11/24

Woke up to a dusting of snow! After a nice breakfast and snowball fight, we were on the road back to Rochester. We got back around dinnertime and decided to unload the cars and go right to Flaherty’s, a favorite Irish restaurant in Macedon. The French Onion soup was delicious!

SATURDAY 11/25

Our last full day in New York was spent cleaning and cooking, then Mom and Dave along with Todd, Cyndy and Bill joined us for a nice family dinner. I made Mastaccioli, crunchy cole slaw and cherry dump cake for dessert. After dinner, some friends stopped over to say hello to us before we left for Phoenix the next day. We played Euchre and had fun catching up and they stayed until midnight.

SUNDAY 11/26

We packed everything up and said our goodbyes to Ray and Sue. It was so nice to spend time with them over the holiday, we really enjoyed ourselves. We flew out at about noon, and even though our connection in Charlotte was only 35 minutes, we actually made it with bathroom time to spare! Lady was ecstatic when we walked in of course and the only casualty was a jar of Parmesan cheese.

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Overall it was a wonderful way to spend the holiday. We got to see snow (but I was happy to leave it behind!), friends, family and enjoy togetherness we hadn’t in years. The food was fabulous, the company was wonderful and I think we played enough Euchre to last us a while too!

Happiness = perfection?

Being happy doesn’t mean everything’s perfect. It means you’ve decided to see beyond the imperfections.

This was sent as part of a long email forward from a friend. I wanted to share it with you, because it really touched me. It’s amazing how powerful and truthful one short paragraph can be.

What American accent do you have?

What American accent do you have? (Best version so far)

Neutral

You’re not Northern, Southern, or Western, you’re just plain -American-. Your national identity is more important than your local identity, because you don’t really have a local identity. You might be from the region in that map, which is defined by this kind of accent, but you could easily not be. Or maybe you just moved around a lot growing up.

What’s your American accent?

Holiday giving

Looking to make a difference this holiday season? Why not send a note and/or care package to someone in our military to let them know you appreciate them? Many of our troops do not receive letters on a regular basis and so many are living in very difficult conditions. I was looking at profiles of some serving in Kosovo and they are in sea huts. Check out www.anysoldier.com for a database of soldiers in all branches, all countries, with diverse needs. You can search by latest contact, country they’re serving in, branch of the military or many other ways.

While I was browsing this site, I also came across Operation Santa Sarge. This is an Army unit in Kosovo working to help an orphanage with children ranging in age from 2 weeks to 12 years. At 12, they are turned out onto the streets. They need many basic items including school supplies, toiletries and stuffed animals. One of the goals of the unit is to have Christmas Celebration for the children. Visit the website to learn more and how you can help them to have a merry Christmas.

Trinity (TX) Wins on 15 Laterals

You may have already seen this, but it’s amazing to watch again and again! 

Sunday catch-up

Wow it’s been a while since I’ve posted here. We’ve been so busy, long days, late nights and i’m exhausted! Our weekend has been fun though. Started out Friday night with BUNCO at my house with our fun group of gals. It was my turn to host and I made Chicken Chardonnay with Mushrooms, Fettuccine in Parma Rosa sauce, a salad and freshly baked bread. For dessert I made a trifle with brownies, Oreos, cheesecake filling and Cool Whip. We had a blast playing, then transferred the fun over to our friends’ Todd & Barb’s house.

Yesterday/Saturday we went to Justin’s last football game of the season. They lost again, but of course it was fun anyway to watch the boys play. Justin had a few good runs. Afterwards we went to Planet Smoothie Cafe (coach’s business) for the football party. One of the team parents is a professional videographer so he compiled an awesome video of the first part of the kids’ season. Justin has a lot of face time on it too.

Last night we went to another B/S show at the Marquee Theatre in Tempe. They were awesome and so was the Van Halen tribute band the Atomic Punks. As a reward to Justin for good grades we brought him along – it was an all-ages show. He loved it! Especially since B/S’s  last song was TNT, Justin’s favorite. He also enjoyed seeing the Eddie Van Halen counterpart Lance jam out on the guitar for about 10 minutes.

This morning started with church, then I took Eric to Target to get some jeans for our upcoming trip. My gosh, shopping with a teenager is a pain in the butt! He’s so picky about clothes now and once he found a pair he really liked that fit him well, I had to scour the shelf and couldn’t come up with another pair! After another 1/2 hour of trying on more jeans he found a pair that was “OK”. Then we had to find T-shirts – not just any T-shirts, but the right kind of T-shirts. Two hours later, we walked out of the store with a bag full of stuff that seemed to make Eric happy.

We spent the afternoon watching football, mostly the Bills game. I can’t believe they pulled off the win, and just barely squeaking by against the worst team in the league! Next week we will be in NY watching the game with Terry’s friends – should be fun!