Thanksgiving and Christmas Trees

Hope that you all had a great Thanksgiving! We had a good time celebrating for several days. Here are a few of the things we have been up to over the last week. Sorry for the super long post, there was just too much that happened over the week.

Isn't that the most beautiful turkey? You may call me Saint Nicole because I made the whole Thanksgiving feast on Wednesday just for our little family so that we would have our own leftovers. I was quite impressed with myself because, not to brag, but this was the best turkey I have ever had. I brined the turkey overnight, which I had never done before, and that made it really delicious and moist. Then I rubbed it with an herb butter that I made with fresh sage and rosemary and lots of garlic and it was so yummy. I also made homemade stuffing, rolls, jello salad (which the kids love because I only make jello for Thanksgiving) and pumpkin dessert.

Thursday we headed down to Nick's mom's house and had Thanksgiving with her. Jaxton was having a great time playing with everyone.

Nick's sister Emily was also there, here she is texting on her phone.

Me in the after dinner festivities.

Thursday night we headed on down to my mom and dad's house in Visalia. My mom and I went out shopping on Friday, fighting the crowds and getting bullied by the many non english speakers. Honestly I can't believe how aggressive and rude some people are. My mom had her hand on a toy and some lady came up to her and said "I'm going to be taking that." My mom was so shocked that she gave it to her. We did get some good deals and got most of the things that we went for. We had a good time spending the whole day together, which we never get to do. Nick and Hannah, my sister were so good to spend the whole day with the kids. Nick even did laundry, kept my mom's house clean, fed the kids dinner and got them to bed. He also took the kids to the mall to see Santa, what a trooper!

We always get our Christmas tree the day after Thanksgiving, so we thought we would try and get one down in Visalia. Nick looked up some Christmas tree farms online and the closest one was about 40 miles away, so we headed out Saturday afternoon to get one. We drove out to the middle of nowhere, literally, and drove around trying to find the farm. We finally found a farm and they had about 25 trees and it was about $50 for a 3 foot tall bush, they weren't even trees. So we decided to cut our losses and get one at home.

While Hannah and I were out Saturday night, I spotted some nice looking trees in the Save Mart parking lot so we checked them out. We found the most beautiful tree, it looked like it was a fake tree it was so perfect. We went home and told my mom and she wanted us to go get it. So Nick, Hannah and I headed out in the "paint van." For those of you not familiar with the paint van, my dad used to paint houses and this was his work vehicle (I call it the child molester van because it has no side windows.) It is a 1992 white, Chevy van with no seats in the back. Hannah sat on a motorcycle rack in the back as there is no seats. I haven't been in the paint van since I lived at home and I really forgot how embarrassing it is. So we loaded up the tree and brought it home to my mom.

I let my mom have it instead of taking it for myself because she has not had a tree in several years. She bought a fake tree about 15 years ago after being tired of the cheap trees my dad wanted to get. It all came to a head one year when my dad bought a $6.99 tree at Allen's Supersave (the trashiest local grocery store) and it really was the Charlie Brown Christmas tree with about 15 branches on the whole tree. After that she bought the fake tree and then they through it away when they moved and since then they haven't had a tree at all.

So on our way home Sunday night, we stopped to get gas and we decided to check out the Save Mart and they had a really nice tree there as well and so we through it up on top of the minivan and traveled home Grizwald style with a giant tree up on our roof.