Trees and Pies and stuff

One more Thanksgiving post and then I will move on, I swear.

Yesterday was the final day of our family festivities. The four from the north didn't have to hit the road until late evening, so we got to enjoy one more meal together. Dad and Mom's dinner table was maxed out with eleven of us squeezed around it and four more sitting at the counter. Mom went all out and fed us another meal of turkey and fixings, including another round of sweet potatoes that I wasn't expecting. Let me pause for a moment of silence in honor of the official "dish of the year".

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She even made three pies, one of them being pecan. Once again, we over ate. It was fabulous. Don't worry, I cracked the whip this morning and punished myself with an extra speedy run on the treadmill. I'm hoping that I sweated off at least one of the pieces of pecan pie.

Now, just because we wait until December to put up our own decorations for Christmas, doesn't mean we can't participate in the cutting down of a tree that will go in someone else's house. We tagged along to the annual Christmas tree chopping down event. This year we drove quite far to a quaint little tree farm with and amazing selection. It too two vans to get us over there, but once we arrived, we all piled in our 12 passenger van. Sixteen people in twelve seats. It looked something like this and this:

It was a bit muddy, as it had been raining most of the day. We only got stuck once, but Nate rocked the Beast right out of there, nothing like going off-roading in an overloaded 12 passenger van. There were a lot of opinions on tree type, shape, price, height, but Dad finally made the big decision and chose a beauty. Some people missed the tree selection process because they were playing hide-and-seek amongst the firs. It was a perfect ending to a really fun week. And surprisingly, we didn't accidentally leave anyone at the tree farm. At least I don't think we did.....