Thanksgiving

I really need to be better about photos in the bootheel. I'll make a renewed effort next visit!

Here's Aunt Holly getting in the spirit:

We had a quick trip to see my grandma & family & uncle Jeff in the bootheel for Thanksgiving, since both mom and I had to go back to work on Saturday. James and Leah played hooky (Leah missed her preschool feast & James missed a spelling test) and drove down with me and Nana Jana on Tuesday and then Amelie, Sam, and Steve came down on Wednesday. 

We took some of the kids & dogs out to the big nice park since the weather was good. The dogs had a BALL and did not want to listen one bit.

The kids had fun, too. (This was before Amelie got there, though.)

 

 

The rocket ship slide is older than I am: 

Still fun, though!

 

 

 

Holly & I got up at 5am to preheat the oven for the 24 pound turkey. She'd placed the grocery order for pickup and that's what they sent us. We couldn't decide if they were out of the smaller birds she'd requested (10+ pounds), or if it was a mixup and some big family got the wrong thing, or if they just didn't care and threw the first one in the cart since I'm sure it was super busy for the holiday. All equally likely options, I think. 

I'm thankful for Aunt Lana getting a picture of Grandma Doris with two of her great-grandkids. 

Second cousins - their birthdays are exactly 1 month apart. 

All ready for the feast & sitting at the folding table: 

Yum!

So sweet.

Not as big of a group as most years (there were 14 of us there), but very different from last year's pandemic Thanksgiving.  

 

Aunt Holly has been practicing rolling my hair for a perm. It looked a little wonky right after it came off the rollers, so I sent her this picture after I'd fixed it a little (I'm in the passenger seat of the van)

When we got home, we made our annual trip to Westlake for a tree & Sam bravely bungeed it down on top of the van. I guess there was a Christmas tree shortage this year (along with everything else) and the smallish tree to fit our 8-foot ceilings was $60!