Holiday weekend recap

Before leaving for Thanksgiving with the family, we HAD to bathe the dogs.  When Chihuahuas need
a bath they start to smell a little like Fritos.  Marvin & Walter smelled a lot like Fritos since we'd procrastinated bathing them.  But we certainly weren't going to bring 2 Frito-smelling dogs with us to become the laughing stock of the holiday.  Marvin & Walter used to hate getting baths and would try multiple times to climb out of the laundry sink.  They've gotten much better, and while they still don't like it, they don't try to "escape" as Spouse calls it.  I like to take photos of their baths because I find them cute, for some reason.

Spouse made his famous stuffing (with granny smith apples, dried cranberries, and pecans) which made our house smell wonderful.  Then on Thurs morning we packed up the boys, the stuffing, and some odds and ends and drove to Spouse's sister's house in Northern VA.  The traffic was light and we made great time.  Our 2 nephews were both home from college and our niece was there with her boyfriend, their 2-year old Gabby, and their new dog Bingo.  Marvin & Walter got along well with Bingo and they played a lot.  Marvin & Walter were absolutely exhausted that night, literally falling asleep sitting up.

Anna, Bingo, Gabby, Randy

After we'd gotten settled and had a little snack, I picked up my aunt Mary to join the gang, and shortly thereafter Spouse's brother and his wife came over.  We had a delicious dinner of roasted turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes, gravy, regular cranberry sauce, jalapeno cranberry sauce, sweet potato shuffle, peas, corn, green bean casserole, biscuits, and corn bread.  Later for dessert we had pumpkin pie, chocolate cheesecake, hummingbird cake, assorted chocolates, and peanut butter fudge. It was a wonderful feast!

When we lived in VA, Spouse & I used to host Thanksgiving and we used a large, oval platter with a gaudy turkey design on it from the 1970s which we'd gotten from his mother.  This platter is what the turkey would be placed on just prior to carving.  Since this is our family's 1st Thanksgiving without his mom, and since we no longer host, I decided to bequeath the gaudy turkey platter to Spouse's sister this year.  It made me feel comforted that although Spouse's mom wasn't with us, her spirit was with us in the form of her old turkey platter.

Fri morning we ate Thanksgiving leftovers for breakfast, including the desserts.  Then Spouse & I met up with our friends Shaun & Jeff for lunch.

Shaun & Jeff

We met them in Feb of 2016 on our cruise to the Caribbean.  We learned that they lived near where we'd lived and where our family still is, and we connected on Facebook after the cruise. We had lunch with them while we were in town.  They're super nice guys and we had a fun time.  Later that afternoon we headed home to DE.  I had to work on Sat and perform Sat night.

Work went well, and after a light dinner, I performed as Elton John in the Holiday Legends show.  All of the Legends characters perform a holiday song they were known for and a non-holiday song they were known for, so as Elton John I performed "Candle In The Wind" and "Step Into Christmas".  It was fun; I love holiday music.

I also had to work on Sun, which is unusual, but several of my colleagues had requested the day off so I was assigned to cover the office on my usual day off.  It was very slow so I got caught up on several work and non-work things.

I hope everyone had a nice Thanksgiving, whether spent with your biological family or your logical family of choice.