Life with Lyndsay: Thanksgiving in Memphis

This year, Tim & I went to Memphis (where my grandparents live) to celebrate Thanksgiving. Tim worked 1/2 a day on Wednesday and we drove up in time to meet Moms, Pops, my mom, Allen and Ryan for dinner.

Dinner on Wednesday night at Humdingers

Happy to see my brother! Missing Rhetter :(

My aunt and uncle, Kay and Mike and my cousin Megan and her husband Blake also came in town.

Megan & I - cousins!

I do have to brag on Megan a bit here - she just graduated from Alabama (I love her anyway) and was on the gymnastics team. They won the national championship last year and she recently got her national championship ring.

It's huge! So pretty!

Thow in an SEC ring to boot...

Our wonderful hosts - my grandparents, Moms & Pops

Blake & Megan - newlyweds!

Mom & Allen

Me & the hubby

Thursday morning, the girls (minus me) spent THREE HOURS at Walgreens and CVS doing couponing deals. Megan coupons a lot - she is one of those people who can plan it out so she actually walks out of the store with more extra care bucks than she walked in with (i.e. she makes money and takes home a ton of stuff). The women in our family (myself included) are BARGAIN shoppers. They love a good deal! I was already planning on Black Friday shopping and didn't need many tolietry type items so I took a rain check. I went on a run through my grandparents area that morning - the weather was pretty blah, but they live on a golf course, so I ran the cart path which was at least pretty smooth. I ended up getting a little bit turned around on the golf course though and ran longer than I planned - although it was my longest run to date! Only about 1/2 a mile short of the 10 mile goal I have for the race in January! My knee has been hurting since then though :( At least I didn't feel bad on splurging on some yummy Thanksgiving food!

We had green bean casserole, dressing, squash casserole, mashed potatoes, strawberry salad, green salad, rolls, ham, turkey AND pork tenderloin.

Yum! And really good leftover!

We took a breather in the afternoon to watch some football - luckily both the Longhorns and the Cowboys pulled out a victories with last minute field goalsover A&M and the Dolphins.

Football time

Hook 'em!

Happy Thanksgiving!

Mom & I

Allen & Mom

Blake, Mike, Megan and Kay

Then, of course - the main event in our family is the dessert! Everyone brought something - Mom's puppy chow and chocolate chocolate chip cake, Moms' crockpot candy, Megan's oreo balls, Kay's derby pie and pecan pie and my pumpkin pie cheesecake swirl (we needed at least ONE thing that didn't have chocolate?!). I'll post the recipe later this week.

Delicious!

We also played a few rounds of cards during the week - I must add, the only game we finished all the way I was the winner (of course, do you think I'd bother to tell you about it if I'd lost?!) We like to play Shanghai - and I caught everyone on the last hand to come back from behind!

We also always go Black Friday shopping - I just like the thrill of the chase, even if I'm not hunting anything big (which I wasn't really this year). The whole opening stores at midnight REALLY through us for a loop this year - its hard to decide whether to stay up or go to bed and go early? We ended up deciding to go at midnight and somehow convinced Tim and Ryan to go with us...

They're only smiling now...

THEY HATED IT! I can't say I blame them this year - we went to Macy's and really didn't find ANY good deals. It was incredibly crowded, our coupons wouldn't work on any of our purchases and it just wasn't all that fun! We went home pretty quickly, got some sleep and went back out at 8 that morning (sans Tim and Ryan). We went to Dillards (good deals on purses - I got a Lodis wallet for $10!) and Loft and hit up a few other stores in the mall.

That afternoon, we caught up a bit on sleep and Tim made chili for the whole family for dinner that night. I must say - Tim makes a mean chili.