Happy Thanksgiving Part 2

Every year we rotate our holidays, so this year was our year to go to E TN for a Thompson Thanksgiving. We got up early on Thanksgiving and drove to An Am and Uncle Pete's house to help out with the meal. We had two turkey's (one fried with Cajun spices (U Pete) and a traditional one made by (An Am). Both were delicious! An Am and I were prepared to help out with the other sides but as usual I felt more in the way than anything so Grannie gets credit for all of the sidedishes! The food was delicious. All of the Thompson's joined us, except for Benny, Kim, Jordan, and Summer. Benny was in the hospital and we really missed them!

Brad and I talked about going out for Black Friday to Toys R Us for the sale that started at 12 am. We thought it would be a good opportunity to do our shopping for Connor this year, since he would be asleep and his grandparents and An Am and U Pete were there. Usually we have to arrange for my parents to come down so we can go out for a few hours. We used to take Connor with us because he didnt really understand the Santa concept but now he definitely gets it and remembers if you buy something that isnt given to him when we get home. Let me just start by saying that when we got to the parking lot of T-R-US it was packed (just a few parking spaces available) and we thought that maybe another store had decided to open too. Well, we quickly we saw the line forming but thought it wasnt too long, so we got in line and started joking about how we had no idea it would be like this. Well, had we known what was in store for us we would have just went back to the car and back to bed! The line to go in actually went by the front door, wrapped around the side of the store and out to the road and back to the front door. We didnt know this until we got to the door. There were two news crews there and they had to call the police because when they opened doors there was such a rush of people that they got stuck, yes I said STUCK in the door! LOL Wish I could have seen that one. When we actually got in the store, it was so crazy that of course there were no carts and people were running everywhere snatching things. Since we were in Knoxville, the store was layed out opposite of how ours is in Franklin so we were a little turned around to begin with. Combine that with not being able to move or see anything in the aisles because of back to back people and it was MADNESS! We couldnt even get to the Superheroes section because of the electronics line. We finally pushed our way through and they were out of everything we wanted that was on sale. Imagine that?!!! Shortly after that they came over the intercom TWICE and said that someone had lost their son and the Mommy needed to come and get him NOW! I was so frustrated with the people who had small children with them at midnight to do their Santa shopping!!!! I mean come on people! As quickly as we could we got our things and started asking where the line to check out started. There were lines forming everywhere and of course people who thought they were in line, were not, so there were lots of angry people. We were in the correct line, so that was good because we didnt figure that out until we had been standing there for 20 minutes or so. The sales lady told us that they were not prepared for the crowd (No kidding?!!!) and this was the most crowded she had ever seen it. The line went from the front of the store to the back and we weaved in and out of aisles along the way. After standing in line for 2 hours to check out we finally headed back to bed and got there at 4 am only to start again in the morning. We decided to sleep in (Brad, Connor and I) and went out again at 10 am and met everyone for lunch at Calhouns. Later that afternoon, Uncle Pete, Brad and Pops went to the Rockwood game :( and An Am, Grannie, Connor and I went to the Fantasy of Trees and out to dinner afterwards. I cant speak for the guys but we had a great time! Connor loved all of the activities and got to see Santa. As you can imagine we were pretty pooped by the end of that day! We came home on Saturday after a great breakfast at Cracker Barrell.

It was a wonderful Thanksgiving with both families this year. It was definitely one Brad and I will never forget...LOL No more Black Friday mornings for me. Lesson learned.

We are so blessed!

Watching Pete dress the turkey to fry.

Fantasy of Trees

He was super excited about the carousel (ferris wheel as he calls it)!

I think it started a little abruptly for him. This was his first reaction! Needless to say he didnt stay on the horse for the entire ride. LOL

This ride was like the teacups at WDW, so of course Connor wanted to ride it too. He wouldnt let An Am spin and wanted it to slllooooww down!

Making a potholder.

Very happy with his masterpiece.

It was hard to get him away from this train.