Matt and his dad deep frying a turkey. Yep, I guess we're the rednecks of our neighborhood. Notice that Matt's got his safety goggles on.
my dad and his siblings: Bobby, Patti, Jowie, Mike and Pat
Matt, Sophie, Paula, Abbie, Tom, Teresa, and Leia (the Vergne clan)
Abbie with cousin Keri
Sophie and Luke in back, Abbie and Layton in front
We got some pretty funny shots because the little ones are always in motion!
Abbie and Layton playing Mario Kart
This year, we had a wonderful Thanksgiving overall. I had thought that we might do some travelling to meet up with Matt's family but they ended up coming over to spend Thanksgiving with us. It was very sweet of them because it's a long drive! The weather ended up being really nice while they were in town. We ended up doing a joint Thanksgiving lunch with my dad's side of the family and Matt's family. The only thing that Matt felt very strongly about this year was that he wanted to deep fry a turkey. For several years, he and his dad or his uncle have deep fried a turkey for Thanksgiving but we are not always with them for Thanksgiving. Matt's parents brought their deep fryer with them. Matt and Tom, his dad, set up their whole cooking station in our backyard and deep-fried two turkeys to take to my parents' house for lunch. They were really good along-with all of the other yummy food that we had.
My sister, Martha, and her husband, Matt, were there alongwith all of my dad's siblings and their families. The only downside to Thanksgiving this year was seeing my Uncle Jowie in such bad shape. He was just diagnosed with lung cancer a few weeks ago and by the time they found it, it had already spread to his bones, his lymph nodes, his back, etc. It's pretty advanced lung cancer to say the least. It had only been about a week since I had seen him but he looked much worse and could hardly stay awake to eat. It was very difficult to see him look so weak.
Our girls love spending time with all of their cousins, grandparents and aunts and uncles when we can get together with everyone. They are still pretty much the youngest cousins (on my dad's side for sure) so they get a lot of attention.
On the day after Thanksgiving, a few people got up early to go shopping but I ended up staying home and letting Matt catch some good buys. I'm not that big on really huge crowds when I go shopping. Matt's cousin, Mark, was in town since they had spent Thanksgiving with Ashley's family. We invited Mark and his boys to come over and visit. Luke and Layton are very close to Sophie and Abbie in age but we don't see them often. The kids took awhile to warm up to each other but then they had a good time playing (especially the younger ones). I think their boys were wondering where all of the boy toys were but of course, we just have girls so we're limited on boy stuff! Eventually, the kids played Mario Kart on the Wii a little bit.
