Thanksgiving break and a photo op with a tree that we left on the mountain!

Happy Advent! I hope you all had a great Thanksgiving.  I know we did!

Our Thanksgiving weekend started on Tuesday. I picked Peter up after his last class. He was extremely  thankful and happy to be headed home for a very long weekend.

Sarah had swim practice on Tuesday night and then went out with some friends and spent the night so while I had Peter home and safe and sound under my roof, Sarah was gone!  Oh well.

Sarah had morning swim practice on Wednesday and when she got home, I took the kids to lunch. They picked Chipotle which was fine with me because I love a good burrito bowl. We also ran a few errands and I even at one point exclaimed, "It's just like the good old days!" because I was driving and they were passengers just like it always used to be.  I can't remember the last time it was just me driving both of them somewhere.  It was really nice.  (Jeez, how pathetic am I?) :)

I made a carrot cake, cranberry sauce, and a sweet potato casserole when we got done with our errands and before I knew it, it was Thanksgiving morning!

We headed to Mom's house around 12:00 and Jennifer and her family joined us and we feasted.  And I took zero pictures but Sarah sent me this cute one of her, Chey, Colton, and Peter:

I really wish they had taken a picture with Caity and Cody too because then we could compare it to this picture from Thanksgiving 2014:

Look at those baby faces!  Excuse me while I go she a few tears...

All right, I'm back.

We attempted to do our annual Thanksgiving evening Starbucks run but I guess everyone is giving their workers time off so none of the Starbucks around us were open.  But Sonic was open so the kids got shakes. 

We headed to the  mountains on Friday to get our Christmas tree.  We passed the crowded large tree farm and headed to the small, no-frills farm we've gone to for the past several years.  Sadly though, they haven't done a good job of replanting trees so the only trees left there are really tall.  We have 9 foot ceilings and need something under that to work in our house.  All the trees were taller than 9 feet so we made the executive decision to just take a picture in front of the trees and then headed to lunch.

Pretend, please, that this is our tree:

After lunch, we headed home and went to the closest already cut tree place and grabbed a reasonable sized tree from there.  Not as exciting as picking and cutting our own, but sometimes you have to pivot.  We'll find another no-frills pick and cut place in the mountains for next year.

Here are some pictures of us decorating the tree:

 

On Friday night, NC State played Carolina and you know we had to watch. Peter tried to get tickets but wasn't lucky in the student lottery so we watched from home.  And that turned out to be the best thing because he didn't want to have to drive back to Raleigh for the game, then drive back home for the rest of the weekend.  Although, he totally would have if he had gotten tickets. Anyway, it was a very tense and exciting game and thankfully NC State came out on top!  Whew!

On Saturday night we headed to Mass and then came home for dinner.  I made Philly cheese-steak sandwiches which are always a hit.  After dinner, Peter went to hang out with a bunch of friends and spent the night with them and Sarah went to hang out with one of her friends too.  

On Sunday, we had lunch at mom's, finished up Peter's laundry, and then headed back to Raleigh around 4:00.  We took a slightly longer route in hopes of avoiding all the post holiday traffic and thankfully, we did!  

And just like that, our long Thanksgiving weekend was over.  It was really nice having Peter home.  Today is his last day of class. Then they get two free days to study and then exams start.  He should be home early next week and will be home for A MONTH!  How exciting for me!

I will end with a  funny Peter story.  When he left for college I got him only one set of sheets for his dorm bed knowing he wasn't going to wash them very often (if ever). And I made sure to get them in a brown gray color to hide all the filth he would ultimately be sleeping in.

On the way back to Raleigh he started quizzing me about washing his sheets.  I recommended extra detergent and high heat because I knew they had to be pretty gross if he was going to wash them.  His main reason for not washing them was dreading making the bed back up and I don't blame him.  Making a bunk bed is a hassle. Well, I guess it was worth it because this morning he texted me that he really enjoyed sleeping in his clean sheets last night! So maybe he will wash them more frequently than once a semester! :)