TALICEE'S JOURNEY

THANKSGIVING VACATION LANDES STYLE

We hope that everyone had a great Thanksgiving. We sure did.

We began prepping for Thanksgiving on Wednesday. I made everything except the mashed potatoes on Wednesday. While doing this, I had 7 kids under my feet. Thank goodness for great helpers.

Thursday morning I got the turkey in and worked on setting the table and getting everything ready to bake or cook. In-laws arrived around 1:30. Tyler had to work, so he missed seeing his grandparents. We had a great dinner. Then things began to fall apart.

We were cleaning up. So I fixed Tyler a plate and sat it on warmer on my stove. In the cleaning process, I set my plastic cutting board too close to the warmer. You guessed it, the corner melted on the stove. While trying to move it, I broke my spoon rest. No big deal with either one. So the in-laws leave and we get everything in the car to get ready to go out of town. Tyler finally gets home about 7:00. He eats and we head out. Tyler had to work on Friday, so he drove. Taylor rode with him. Last words to the little ones: GO TO THE BATHROOM. No one went. So we are loaded and ready to go. We have yellow jackets in our basement, so we set off a bomb in the house hoping this would work. So no one could go back in for 2 hours.

We are heading down the road. The little ones are enjoying a movie. Then I hear I HAVE TO GO THE BATHROOM. Now it is Thanksgiving night and we are on the interstate. We find a place and go in. Of course everyone had to go then. Get back into the car and head to my parents. We are just cursing along and we come into the county that I grew up in. Every time we get near I tell Randy to slow down. Cops are really bad. We are coming down a hill and Randy is braking a little. That is when we see blue lights. Now just a few hours earlier, I had read my cousin's facebook page and she had gotten a ticket for speeding and a crack windshield. Happy Thanksgiving right. So we get to a safe spot and pull over. First thing Randy says to me is YOU KEEP YOUR MOUTH SHUT. Me say anything. I am in my hometown. I probably know who just pulled us over and went to school with them. So I sit there. The police officer comes to the window and asked if we knew why we were being stopped. Randy said I have no idea. The cop says we were doing 71 in a 55. NOT, because I had just looked at the speed and noticed it was just over 60. We could see the 60 miles per hour sign in front of us before we saw lights. So Randy gives him his license. I go for the registration. Wouldn't you know, I could not find the current on. So I handed him the 09 one. Our tags proved that we had renewed. The 2010 one was stuck to the 09 one. So we wait for him to return. In the mean time, Talicee is sitting in her seat saving Daddy are you going to jail. I don't want to go to jail. I guess we all could have gone because we had 3 guns under the seat. The boys where going hunting and the gun cases would not fit in the van. Glad he did not search the vehicle. Get our wonderful Thanksgiving ticket and head on. You know if Randy would have let me lean up and see who was giving us a ticket, we might have gotten out of it. See I know people that he does not know. But he told me not to move. So now he has a ticket.

We get to my parents and the first thing the boys ask us is where have you been? Of course Talicee pops us and say daddy was going to jail. By then it is 9:30 and we are all tired. We head to my sisters.

My sister has a new house and we are not familiar with it. So we are making our way to our bedroom. Our old bedroom was on the living floor with lots of windows and light. Our room now is downstairs. We finally get ready for bed. Talicee is upstairs with Morgan and Trevor and Madison are sleeping on the futon. Randy and I get into bed and turn the light off. It is dark, very dark. Not familiar with the new area, we are afraid to get up and go to the bathroom. We finally go to sleep. While trying to go to sleep, I notice that there were 2 blinking lights on the ceiling. Not much light there either.

Randy was getting up to go hunting. I heard him get up and get Trevor and Maddie up. They turned on every light that had to be in the basement. Finally, I heard them go upstairs. Good, I can go back to sleep. I was almost asleep when this motor sound went off. Scared me to death. It was the furnance. No one told me that the furnance was right beside my room. It actually sounded like an airplane ready to take off. Well, I guess I am up for the day. Before Randy, Michael and kids left for hunting they needed to get breakfast. So the 3 of them went upstairs to wait on Michael. He was not up yet. Some great white hunter he is. Melissa says that he came out of the bedroom and looked in the living room and there were 3 sets of eyes staring at him. Michael went back into the room and told her that they were all sitting out there waiting on him. This would have been a kodak moment. Just another clue of how our vacation is going.

We did our family Thanksgiving as lunch on Friday. We had planned to go shopping. A tradition that mom and my sister do every year. We used to go in the morning, but with 6 kids, we can't do that any more. So we go in the afternoon and shop until the wee hours of the morning. While warming up the lunch items, Michael put the rolls in the oven. My sister has 2 ovens now and wanted to use one to warm stuff. We said we did not need it. I began to smell something burning. We checked once and did not see anything. The smell continued. Finally, we realized that all of the racks where full and Micheal had put the stone directly on the burner in the oven. That was what was burning. So needless to say the rolls were burned. We have lunch and it was great. Since my Dad's birthday was on Thanksgiving, we gave him his gifts after we ate.

My sister and Mom and I headed out for shopping. We had our sells papers in tow. We had a plan. We were going to shop all stores that we needed to until everything closed and then head to Wally World. We could not remember how we did it last year. So we started at Target. Wrong move. We only got to shop at 7 stores and did not even get to the mall. Last year we must have started at the mall and moved to other stores. Needless to say, we did not get the shopping done we wanted to. Better plan next year. So we were home before 11:00.

Saturday VT had a home game, so we knew we had to stay away from Blacksburg. My sister's family was going to the game. Not that everyone wanted to go. Lets just say I would not have wanted to be in the same car with them going to the game. Mom and I went to her Wally World. We really didn't get to shop because we knew we needed to head back home before the game was over to beat the traffic. I get a text message from Taylor saying that the game is in 3rd quarter and we needed to leave now. It was only 1:00 and the game did not start until 12:00. I am a little confused. Head to my parents. Now I am thinking, the guys have loaded the car and are waiting on pins and needles for us. We arrive and guess what. NOTHING HAS BEEN PACKED. I started getting things packed. Remember that Taylor texted me to let me know we needed to leave. Was anything of his packed. No. I do a one last walk through and guess what I find. Taylor's bag in his bedroom. He had not even packed. I feel like I am stuck in mud at this time. We need to leave but nothing is done but everyone is ready to go.

We make it home safely and without any more tickets. We unload and put away. Grab a quick bite and Randy and I head out to buy a leather sofa I saw while shopping. We get there and they are offering 6 months no interest. What a great deal. We can do this. So we apply for it. The girl calls it in. After a 45 minute wait for someone to approve us, we decided we would just pay cash for it and head out. Now why would your company offer something like this and not be available for credit check. Just another notch in our vacation. We stop at Starbucks for a coffee. So looking forward to a warm drink since it was cold. Took a drink and burned my tongue. Dang it. Got the new sofa in and the old one out for Tyler to put in his apartment. Now time for bed. Hopefully, Sunday will be a better day.

I felt like we were the Griswald's. Everything we seem to do, something would go wrong. We have laughed and cried all weekend. It was so nice to special a little time with my mom and sister. I look forward to this every year. Even though our Thanksgiving vacation was the Griswald one, we had a great one.