Thanksgiving Time

Oh how the time flies.  Before we knew it, Thanksgiving was upon us and fortunately, most of my family was heading to Fresno to celebrate.  2011 has been an incredible year, and now we have one more wonderful thing to be thankful for; A healthy beautiful baby girl.  As tradition dictates, the Franks headed up this year to enjoy the festivities at my parents place, but since Alex got to Fresno a day before Andrew did, he got to spend some quality time with Annabel.  

Cheryl made her delicious pumpkin pies and we all headed over to my parents place to share a Thanksgiving meal.  Being our first real holiday living in Fresno, it was actually REALLY nice not having to travel.  Living in LA, we lucked out with the Franks hosting Thankgiving fir a few years and we only had an hours drive to their place.  But now, 5 minutes from my parents place - I found myself able to relax a bit more, and that's with a 1 1/2 month old! I know Cheryl felt a bit more at peace knowing that if she needed to get back home to take care of Annabel or just catch a breather, she was just a few miles from home.  As usual, there was more food that any human family could consume but we all stuffed our faces regardless.  The real highlight, or at least form me and the boys, was Black Friday.  This is now our 5th year doing it and this year would be just as crazy and just as memorable.  Having an iPhone, I felt the need to try and capture all the craziness of the busiest shopping day of the year.  Unfortunately, due to the stall in our economies rebound, retail stores decided that they would open at midnight on Thanksgiving night to allow for more business hours in which to sell stuff.  This did not make us happy.  Usually, stores opened at 6 am on Friday, which gave people plenty of time to spend with friends and family before heading out either late Thursday night or Friday morning to get shopping.  But now, the greed of these companies has encroached on our holiday and lured people away from the Thanksgiving table to wait in line outside of these stores in hopes of getting some ridiculous deal.  So, instead of heading out at 10pm to camp out and have some male bonding time with my cousins, we threw on some tennis shoes, left the sleeping bags at home, and headed out for a high octane blitz of the retail market to grab the greatest deals on toys and board games - AND DONATE THEM ALL TO CHARITY.  This year has been great to me and my family, time to pay it forward.  Operation Neighborhood Thrift was a GO!


After that craziness we needed a little R&R - and what better place to get a little peace and quiet than up at our property on Black-hawk lake.  Just think of it as a continuation of the festivities and enjoying family.

Love the Onesie!

Grandma and Annabel

As a fun little bonus, The Frank family decided to bring up their newest creation - A Potato Gun of epic proportions.  What better place that up in the foothills to empty a can of Aquanet and decimate a 10 lb. bag of potatoes.  Pure Joy!

Happy Thanksgiving Everyone!  

These are the people I am most Thankful for this year.  I am so Very Blessed!