Friday, December 5, 2008

The Giving Of Thanks

So, here goes nothing with the Thanksgiving blog! Megan flew in and was here in what took a short 1 1/2 hours. Mom and Bridget drove for 9 hours. There is a huge amount of injustice in those two numbers. Those 9 hours were filled with phone calls that went something of this sort.

Birdo: Are there literally only county roads through Wisconsin?
Me: Yes, it's Wisconsin! What did you expect?
Mom: (Hollering in the background) Rocky & I never took these roads, I think we're going the wrong way.
Me: What does your GPS say?
Birdo: It says to stay on this road.
Me: THEN FOLLOW YOUR GPS!

Poor Birdo, she can’t figure out how to follow a GPS. Flash forward 6 or 7 hours later while they're still driving and in that time that they've driven Megan & I have done some shopping, drank a little, watched the SNL skit of JT & Beyonce dancing to “Single Ladies” probably 20 times and even took R-rated pictures with our turkey. They were getting closer and so I decided to call for a check in. Now, before they embarked on their trip I gave Bridget our address to punch into "Garmina", her GPS. Apparently Garmina couldn't locate Stratton Ave., which is fine because that is only our address because that is where our mailbox is. We actually live on Rolling Hills Rd. Many a pizza delivery guy has been had by this tomfoolery. So I told her to punch in Rolling Hills Rd. and it had her coming in on the back way so I said when you get close call me and I’ll just tell you how to get here, its super easy. So the time was now and this is a snippet of what proved for Bridget to be too difficult of a conversation. Apparently the ability for her to think and drive is like her walking and chewing bubble gum.. Poor Vertigo!

Me: Ok, so all you have to do is instead of taking that last left on Prairie Lakes Dr., go through the light and take the very next Left onto Rolling Hills.
Birdo: Just wait until I’m off my exit and tell me then, I’m not going to remember. You're going to get me all screwed up.
Me: It's not that hard.. Just don't take the last left. Instead go straight and take the very next left.
Birdo: I can't talk right now, this is confusing me.

She still took that first left and came around the back way and got a little lost amongst the townhomes. But in about 9 1/2 hours they made it!

Thanksgiving Day was a huge success. We spent the morning preparing our Happy Appy’s while Jon played Tiger Woods Golf. We had quite the spread and feasted on everything the remainder of the day. Those little sliders Bridget made were a cosmic piece of heaven.

After the app’s were made and the Turkey was in we opened the wine and let the drinking begin. We must have gotten a bit too comfortable with the wine because sooner than we knew it the oven was dinging and the turkey was ready but we had forgotten to prepare anything else! While Jon took the turkey out and made a half-a**ed attempt to carve it using what was practically a butter knife, Megan scrambled to put the green bean casserole together, Mom started boiling the potatoes (yes, we even forgot to start the potatoes), and I got the Sweet Potatoes ready. Now at this point one might want to flash back to last years episode of Thanksgiving featuring Danielle and I with her frantically yelling “RYAN, THERE’S A FIRE IN THE OVEN!” I guess I didn’t learn my lesson because the marshmallows puffed over the edge. Although there was no official fire like last year, it did make a smoky gooey mess all over our oven and pot holders.

By the time the turkey was carved our dishes were heated up, potatoes mashed, and vegetables were nuked and it was time to eat! Within 5 minutes we were legitimate candidates for over eaters anonymous and victims of the tryptophan. We sat around the table ready to burst, almost falling asleep and played with our food some. Too bad we were too full to eat the two pies I baked.. Ok, they were frozen, but nonetheless.

Hooray for my first successful hosted Turkey dinner!!

I think the best part of Thanksgiving was later that night when we broke out the WII-Fit. Mom schooled Birdo in almost every game, although again she can’t be faulted because it’s the vertigo! And in the background of all the WII madness Stella spent like 10 minutes trying to puke up the abundance of turkey she had managed to beg out of everyone and Megan can be heard gagging in the background. I have video footage supporting this scene, it is quite hilarious.

Black Friday was spent shopping. Megan being the ambitious excited Black Friday shopper that she is woke up at 5am, WALKED across the street to the mall for the one holiday item that is on sale at every single retail store for the same price, a $99 Tom Tom GPS. Why she felt compelled to do this and thought the sale might run out at a random Radio Shack located inside a mall is beyond me. 6 hours later they still had racks full of them at Best Buy. Poor Meg Meg’s just wanted to be a part of the mystique that is black Friday shopping, those 5am door buster deals. I wish I had been awake to witness the blessed event. Her describing walking back down the hill to our house with the morning frost setting in and almost falling on her arse was quite the funny story. One lesson learned from the shopping day extravaganza is to never go to an Ikea with Bridget. This doesn’t even merit an explanation. Just imagine the most annoying shopper who has to take her time and look at EVERYTHING and put her in a massive 50,000 or so square foot store. Enough said.

For now I think this blog is lengthy enough. I will leave you with this. Sunday on their departure Bridget needed gas and stressing out about veering off route to get gas, even though she knows Garmina will re-route her, i so kindly lead them out in my car. She still ended up going the wrong way even with me leading her and a GPS navigation telling her which way to go! Stay tuned for the continuation with a guest appearance by Bonny, “Let the planning begin."

Happy Holidays! Love ~Jon, Heather and Stella~

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