Friday, December 2, 2011

Tyler Thanksgiving

Whoa, time flies, better get this out before the next holiday...

We spent Thanksgiving in Texas this year. We typically drive down, but that is a long drive through some pretty boring parts of the country. However this year we got lucky and found cheap tickets into Tyler, so we flew out Sunday morning and the festivities began. We stayed at my Grandma's house and stayed for about five days.

Here is a recap.

We did at least five puzzles while we were there. We had at least forty pounds of potatoes made. We enjoyed three apple pies made by Amanda! Mikey was on the news twice. And we had one great trip! Welp... see you later...

Just kidding, I guess I will give more details. Our days were planned to spend time between both of my Grandparent's houses. We alternated very well! On Sunday and Monday not too much went on, just hung out with our family. I got to go see a movie with Claire, Mikey went and saw a movie with Katie, and Uncle Mike got to see a movie by himself! We got to go back to Greenberg and pick up the Lamb's Thanksgiving Turkey! This year Jim and Amanda came along, but we all passed on the free hot dogs. Jim, Amanda, and Mikey were on the news while Aunt Carol and I were busy getting the turkey. That was most of the excitement for Sunday and Monday.

Picking up the turkey:


One morning Mikey and I decided to go for a run, so we headed up the road and ran around the UT Tyler Campus. It seemed like a good idea for the first ten minutes of the run, and then it started raining. They had two lovely ponds and a few archways that we enjoyed so we could get out of the rain. And then we even sneaked into the school's gym to avoid the downpour. It finally let up a little bit and we decided to make a run for it and head back to Grandma's house. We ended up cutting through a field that was full of puddles, and we got a bit muddy. I think Mikey's favorite part was when I said that I didn't know I signed up for adventure running.

Getting soaked on campus:


Anyways on to the food... on Tuesday night, we had our annual Texas Tamale Dinner! It was wonderful as usual and Uncle Gary even sent us home with some of Mrs. Rodriguez's homemade tamales. We also snagged my Aunt Donna's sopaipilla cheesecake recipe to make at home too. It was a wonderful dinner!

We also had to have our annual Texas BBQ. We always go to Bodacious. It was delicious too as always! In fact we liked it so much that we grabbed a few bottles of sauce to take home with us, can't wait to eat some of that!

Had enough about food? Well, let me jump to Wednesday. We headed over to the Lamb's house for our first Thanksgiving dinner. It was also a delicious lunch and there was a ton of food. I got to help out in the kitchen getting stuff ready this year with my Grandpa and my Dad and my Aunt Carol. My mom was even cooking stuff up in their camper! I think the total head count on lunch was 24 people. It was a great time to see all the family! And we also got some details for my cousin Rachel's wedding in June! It was a great day spent with family!

Then the last real day we were there was Thursday. Our flight left early Friday morning. So we started off our second Thanksgiving with the Tyler Turkey Trot! We found the local gym in Tyler that sponsors a Turkey Trot last year and promptly signed up the whole family again this year! Jim and Mikey ran very quick races this year, Jim ran a 21 minuter (I think) and Mikey ran a 22 minuter. He ran his pr! Too bad the race doesn't record official times, guess we will have to find another sea level race for him! Aunt Carol and I ran together and we had the occasional visit from Claire and Uncle Mike. They ended up beating us in the end, but they slowed down to jog with us a few times! The Turkey Trot was also the SECOND way Mikey got on the news in Tyler!! I am still a little baffled how in five days he got on the local news TWICE! I guess we were doing all the news-worthy things while we're there!

The gang pre race in the chilly Tyler air:


After the race we spent the day at Grandma Reed's house and had a lovely Thanksgiving dinner number 2! My Uncle Gary smoked the turkey for lunch and my Aunt Janet made a delicious Tiramisu for dessert. Mikey was also a fan of my Aunt Donna's Orange Jello recipe and he was very surprised to learn that the secret ingredient was cheese! I mean everything was delicious. Mikey even ate Aunt Janet's stuffing and he never eats stuffing. After lunch we of course worked on a puzzle and took our family picture.

That really about sums it up! Are you hungry yet? I think I am still full! Well I hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving!