Well it’s been a while since last we blogged, thus I thought I would update you all as to the last eight weeks of the craziness of our lives. We should start with Thanksgiving. My mom, sister, Sean’s sister, mom and dad were at our place for the Turkey carving. Allie and mom came up Tuesday and we stayed up chatting like girls do, though mom didn’t make it as long as she used too. Then Wednesday the cooking began. The menu consisted of:

1 Beautifully brined turkey (made by yours truly)

3 dishes of mom’s famous cornbread dressing (there were three because mom only knows how to make it in extra large quantities

1 dish of butternut squash puree (kind of like sweet potatoes but better in my opinion)

1 dish of green bean casserole

1 dish of Auntie Liz’s salad (this was made and brought by Sean’s mom and is a family favorite of theirs.)

1 thing of sage breakfast sausage (apparently you stuff it in the birds neck cavity, I had to recook it a bit as it was not quite done when the bird was. This is a tradition from Sean’s side of the family just in case any of you Texans were curious as to why I would stuff a perfectly good bird with sausage.)

1 plate of cranberry sauce

2 bowls of gravy (one blended so we can pretend it’s not made from turkey innards and the other original for the folks that can stomach that kind of thing.)

1 plate of rolls

2 pecan pies (made by me and Allie)

3 pumpkin pies (also made by me and Allie, thought she likes to blame me for almost forgetting to add sugar to the pies. I might add that I remembered before they went into the oven and thus saved the pies.)

1 can ReddiWhip

We had a great time eating and chatting on Thursday and it all added up to a pretty nice holiday. Sean and I were sad to see everyone go but I was leaving in about five days and thus we needed to get Christmas on the go.

We spent the weekend after Thanksgiving getting out decorations and prepping the apartment for our first real Christmas Tree. Then the Wednesday before I left for Memphis and St. Louis Sean, Julie and I headed out for a tree. We found a lovely Frasier Fir and Sean figured out how to get it upstairs while Julie and I had some hot chocolate. Though he did put us to decorating soon afterward and had some hot chocolate of his own.

The day after I headed for Memphis to see Becky, Michael and their new addition Justice, the dog. I had a great time visiting and seeing where they live now. They’ve got a great new apartment, which Becky has decorated to perfection, and they’re both working in their perspective fields now. They’ve also got a great place to explore, Memphis is quite an interesting city with lots of great history. I hope that next time Sean will get go visit them with me, until then I’m glad to know they’re doing well.

After staying with them for a few days I drove from Memphis to St. Louis to visit my sister Allison. She graduated back in May and has just now had the opportunity, due to starting her new job and such, to move from the school housing she’s been living in the last couple of years. I arrived Sunday to what looked like a paper and junk war zone. There are moments, like that one, that I wonder how we’re related.

For those of you that know me I’m the world’s most over organized person, I usually have color coded labels on most things and my calendar is my best friend. My sister on the other hand has a very interesting system of organization. Check this video out to see what I mean. Needless to say we spent Monday packing and organizing until around midnight when we both crashed due to exhaustion.  Tuesday we hired movers and by noon she was 90% moved into her new place. We spent the rest of Tuesday and Wednesday getting everything in order and decorating. I left her with a whole lot of things to take to Goodwill. She also had quite a bit of trash to take out and her old apartment to clean, but I think she’ll be a little more relaxed at night when she sleeps now. To see the after video go here and I’ve got some photos from the clean sweep event as well.

I left her very tired Thursday morning as I stayed up the rest of Wednesday night finishing up as much organizing as I could possibly get in. After getting home I crashed and then woke up Friday to head to Bastrop to help my friend Melissa’s family prepare for what is known as “The Santa House.” If you remember our Holiday card from last year with us in Front of Santa and Mrs. Clause you might recall what it’s all about.

This year we were able to be apart of the whole shebang. Sean and I both helped with baking and setting up, as well as feeding the masses and cleaning up afterward. Monica took some photos, as did we, check them out here. There’s everything from baking, decorations, candy making, burnt hands from the candy making, to Sean cat napping before the whole thing started. We enjoyed so very much being part of this tradition and getting the time to spend with Melissa, James, the girls, Monica, Aaron, Pat and Corby. We also enjoyed getting to know the Sharp family better this year. We look forward to next year!

During all the craziness of that we also attending Sean’s work mixer for Christmas, had an outing with our couples meet up group and finished putting together some presents for Christmas. I’ve made several of them this year and I will try to add photos of them as I’ve given them out so you can check out my sewing and baking skills.

We hope you’ve all received your holiday letter and new photo by now, and we will do our best to update the photos and blog over the coming weeks. We’ve got a lot planned with family and friends in the area and we are looking forward to every minute.

We wish you all the best and hope you’re doing well this Holiday Season!

This entry was posted on Tuesday, December 16th, 2008 at 6:24 pm.