Thankful

Yes, this post is waaaay overdue. After Thanksiving, Steve switched to a rotation with q2 call (read: bad for the whole family), Grace was sick, work was wild, and then Bucket and Lindee came to visit (one of the four was actually good!). So, Mom, Aunt Kristie and Carolyn, I'm sorry.

We were blessed this year to get two Thanksgiving celebrations! Unfortunately, pretty much none of the photos from the first one turned out. The weekend before Thanksgiving we celebrated with our "extended extended" family (we are not really technically related to most of them) at "Aunt" Tina's house. We played ping pong, we ate uh-mazing food, and we enjoyed wonderful company. Here's a tiny bit of proof:

We are so happy that Aunt Kristie's family has welcomed us to share their celebrations!

Then, for actual Thanksgiving, Nana came to visit. We dragged her up to Muir Woods Thursday morning. In the end, she thanked us.

Then, we headed home to cook. A lot. It was grand. Steve took full control of the turkey. I had been bugging him about his plan, insisting on brining and making him read all sorts of miscellaneous things about how to cook a turkey. Then, he got into a "turkey-off" with some attending at work and devised his own plan. I backed off, and his bird was SO good. I mean, really good.

Grace getting ready to say grace.

An extra special treat was getting to Skype with my family. We saw the whole crew at my mom's and my dad at the farm with the cousins, aunts and uncles. We even got to sing happy birthday to Erin. It made them all not feel so far away, but it also made me miss them all the more.

On Friday, Grace, Nana and I went to the CAS while Steve went to the hospital for a while to help the poor guy on call who was getting slammed. I really tried to be a big person about it.

It was packed, but totally fun. They have all the winter exhibits up so my little Bostonian can experience "snow."

In the evening we celebrated an early Christmas with Nana. We decorated the tree and Grace got to open her gifts from Nana. She definitely seems to be "getting" Christmas this year, but she has only asked to open the gifts under the tree for others once. And the novelty of removing the ornaments from the tree seems to have worn off.

On Saturday we further our SF tourism efforts with a trip downtown to see the decorations. We saw the SPCA windows at Macys (puppies, kittens and Christmas decorations!) and then stopped for lunch.

Then after waiting in a very long line and tolerating a very loud evangelist with a megaphone (and trying hard to be thankful for free speech), we hopped on the cable car! If I have ever ridden one, it was 25 years ago. It was a really fun way to see the sites and Grace loved it (we all did).

We got off at Ghirardelli Square because Thankgiving gluttony wouldn't be complete without ice cream sundaes (and really, we were sick of pie by then). Poor Grace was dancing to the music while we waited and she took off running toward Steve and ran into a chair, ending up with a black eye.

By the time we got seated, Grace was not in the mood to smile.

After sundaes we took a long walk back to the Ferry Building. It was perfect San Francisco weather and the holiday decorations made everything so festive. We were all exhausted by the end of the weekend, but we have so very much to be thankful for. I love Thanksgiving.