Ghosts of Thanksgiving past

I know you are all anxiously awaiting photos of the new home but you will had to wait as it is Thanksgiving and I have to the obligatory "I am thankful for...." post. Except I am not going to do that post (come, on, we all know what I am thankful for-my husband, my sons, my family, my home, my laundry chute, Black Friday sales...).

I am going to tell you about Thanksgiving in our home. Since we don't live close to our families we don't get to spend every holiday with them. This has caused us to come up with our own traditions for Thanksgiving (and all the other holidays). When we realized we were going to have our first Thanksgiving alone in Savannah we were SO excited. No traveling to 8 different homes to make everyone happy. No having to pretend we liked eating green bean casserole. Heck, as far as we are concerned we will never expose our children to the horror that is green bean casserole. Or dried out turkey. Because unlike other people in our family we choose to brine it and cook it for only 2-3 hours instead of getting up at the crack of dawn to let it dry out in the oven all day. We could have sweet potatoes, but not with mini marshmallows melted on top giving it a nice chemically topping.  In short, we were finally adults and could do whatever we wanted for Thanksgiving dinner and IT WAS GREAT.

Of course we had to get used to each other's traditions, such as mine for watching the Macy's Parade in the morning (I have got to see Santa roll in on his sleigh or my holiday season just does not start) and C's for watching football all evening long. But eventually we learned to compromise (after a couple years of us switching back and forth between the two as we walked through the living room).

We usually have friends and/or family over if we can. There was the year that my brothers came to visit me (during our first deployment) and we had a great dinner together with a friend of mine whose family was not used to the American tradition of "thanksgiving dinner". That was the year I dropped a pot lid on my foot and broke my toe, but also the year that I got to enjoy downtown Savannah decorated for Christmas which we documented via the disposable camera that we bought because I left my camera at home. Good times! Another year we had single soldiers with no where to go over for a home cooked meal. Two years ago we had my mom and stepdad and some friends of our over (one whom was a vegetarian and we forgot about that little fact until most of the food was cooked and we could no longer substitute vegetable stock for chicken stock. Luckily she drank enough to not question if her sickness was from the vino or the food!).  Yeah, we are awesome hosts.

If C is home and has the chance he always signs up to serve food to the soldiers and their families at the DFAC. Why I have not learned my lesson and just had dinner there with him instead of cooking, I do not know. Maybe at our next post.

We have had a couple Thanksgivings over friend's houses, one year (Wesley's first Thanksgiving) because we were getting ready to move into our house we had just built and there was no way we were going to be able to cook dinner and this past year (Henry's first Thanksgiving) because well, kinda the same thing although we didn't end up moving and C had just come home from a deployment and heck, when good friends invite you over take a gift basket and go (or maybe I am just lazy on years I have a kid...hmmm...must have more kids to research this...)! I love the military friends and family we have made over the years and the good times we have had with them (I guess you could say I am thankful for them). I picked up a fantastic recipe for Ulgy Dip at my friend Ali's house on Wesley's first Thanksgiving and I have great memories of playing games at Sabrina and Dustin's house on Henry's first Thanksgiving.

Next year we will probably be in Maryland to see my sister-in law, her husband and our two nephews that we have never met. I can't wait for the cousins to play together for the first time, I hope we all make it there.

It's the end of our 8th married Thanksgiving. Dinner was fabulous, we are all sleepy and the dishes are still in the sink (which wouldn't be an issue but my mother in law is coming tomorrow and well, the house needs to be cleaned up before she arrives). Maybe for Christmas this year I will finally get that house elf I have been asking for. You can tell Santa if you see him that I have been REALLY REALLY good this year. ;)

2009, what a year!

Here we are, December 26th, 2009 (Happy Boxing Day everyone!). I can't believe 2009 is almost over. This year has flown by. I am sure that preparing for an upcoming deployment didn't make time go any slower! We had a busy year, in February we went to the Outerbanks to celebrate Mom's 50th birthday and timing worked out so that we had it over Wesley's 3r birthday. It was freezing cold but we had a great time together drinking and spending time warming up in the hot tub.

We had lots of visitors over the spring holidays, Debbie, Monica and Ted (friends of Christopher's) and then Mom and Matt all came to visit around Easter and enjoyed the warmer Savannah weather. Wesley finished his second year at Growing in the Son Preschool at Savannah Chrsitan. Summer started and we took a family vacation up to Maryland the end of June to see family and spend time at the beach with the Kellers and Jacques. It was also our 5 year wedding anniversary! I cannot believe it's been 5 years since we said our "I dos". We came home and got settled back into our life in Savannah, going to the pool and swim lessons and church and hanging out with friends. In September we had more visitors, Mom and Matt came over Labor Day weekend to spend some more time with us. Then we werebusy busy busy preparing for Christopher's deployment and just trying to spend time with each other. Debbie came to visit us the end of October then the day she left we headed south to Disney World for a week long vacation with the Mouse. We had a fantastic time, the International Food and Wine Festival was going on so we had lots of great food and drinks and our last night there we went to Mickey's "Not so scary Halloween Party" which was a blast! We had our little Jedi Knight all dressed up and we got candy and did our favorite rides over and over again.

We came home from Disney exhaused but happy we had such a great family vacation. Less than two weeks later we were once again saying good bye to Christopher at the hanger on post. It was hard but this time we had a better idea of what to expect and I think in some ways that made it easier for us. Wesley of course had a harder time dealing with Daddy being gone but once we got into a routine it got a lot easier. We had Halloween parties to keep us busy and the week that Christopher left we got some very exciting news: Baby Price #2 is on it's way! S/he should arrive sometime around June 28th, 2010! We are all super excited about this, Wesley more than anyone since he is convinced it's a "puppy and a sister" in there. Time will tell.... :)
Thanksgiving Wesley and I drove up to Maryland for a super busy and crazy week of family, friends and food. The night before I left I attended my 10 year High school reuinon which was a lot of fun (even if Ashley relived one of her drinking too much warm wine college nights). We came home for 3 weeks of parties and school and Christmas decorating and shopping only to turn around and drive back up to Maryland for the Christams holidays. Of course we chose the day that the Noreaster started and we ended up adding 4 hours to our trip when it started snowing around 7:30 pm in North Carolina! Six hours through Virginia in the snow is NOT fun, trust me on that. We did make it finally (3:30 AM!) to Mom and Matt's house where we settled in to enjoy a few snow days. It was Wesley's first snow, and he had a fantastic time playing in it, throwing snowballs and making snow angels. I just wish Daddy had been here to see it.

Our third day here Wesley and I both got really sick and we ended up going to the doctor's on Wednesday. Not that it helped me because Christmas morning I woke up with an ear infection and ended up going to Nighttime Pediatrics with Mom for most of the afternoon. We did have a fantastic Christmas Eve at Aunt Karen and Uncle Jimmy's house (even if I did't get to partake in the pomegrante champagne drinks this year!). Had a great family gift exchange (got some awsome barware from Potter Barn) . We got home and Wesley was so sick we were not able to attend Christmas Eve services with Mom and Matt and we had to miss mom's solo (but Brad said it was fantastic!). Christmas morning was great we got to open gifts with Uncle Brad, Lauren and Uncle Kyle (who made it there by 9 am!). We had lots of good food and a great time opening all our goodies. Wesley was a lot of fun (and way too neat) opening up his gifts. The boy has more Star Wars legos then he knows what to do with! We didn't get to go to Debbie's parent's house for dinner (because I was at the doctor's office) but after a long afternoon rest I was able to get it together and have Brad drive us to Dad and Kim to visit for a while since I had not seen them since arriving here a week ago.

We are looking forward to spending the rest of our time up in Maryland visiting with Friends and family and hopefully having a quiet but fun time ringing in the New Year. We head back hom January 4th (next year!) so Wesley can go back to school and I can hopefully schedue an appointment to find out what our baby is.

I am looking forward to 2010, I love the New Year, it's like getting a fresh start every year. I know that 2010 will bring us some more good times with family, a new baby in June and m husband home sometime before the end of the year. Hopefully our house will sell (pray for us please!) and we will have a smooth transition to our next duty station in Fort Lee, Virginia (although that might not be until 2011!). I hope that no matter what kind of year 2009 was for everyone out there, 2010 is even better. Blessings to all!