Turkey Day in a Whirlwind..

For Thanksgiving we were able to head on down to Charlotte, NC to my parents house once again. Yes, we made the 13 hr drive down there, and yes, I was very uncomfortable for being 32 weeks preggo, but we made it. It could've been worse, we thankfully split our trip up with a stop in Maryland for the night...we did about 6 1/2 hrs each day.

This year for Thanksgiving, all 8 of us kids, plus our spouses, all 5 grandbabies, and 2 of Nic's roommates from school all spent the Holiday together. There was lots of good times that went on by all, and of course, a lot of drama. But thats what you get when you have this many people together under 1 roof.

(11.22.11) The week started out with everybody arriving. We took a day and took all the kiddos to a Children's Discovery Place---basically its a big indoor

playground for kids. Lots of hands on stuff for the little ones. The kids seem to really enjoy it and overall it was worth the money to go.

All the grandbabies waiting to head into the Discovery Place

Will, Sunny, Zoey, Macey, Addison

(11.23.11) On Wednesday evening, we decided to do our Hall Family Christmas, since all of us would be doing our own thing for Christmas this year. The grandbabies got spoiled as always and it was full of good times. Everybody was happy with their gifts---they better be!! A few pictures from this event....

All the girls opening up their gifts....cousin Will was getting some help from his mom.

Michael is the pickiest man when it comes to his ties....I always refuse to pick out a tie for this man b/c he is that picky. Luckily I caught him looking at this tie a few days before our party, told my mom which tie it was, and she got it for him. He was quite surprised and one happy guy. SCORE!!

Addie with one of her gifts

Zoey opening up one of her gifts

I have been getting a lot of crap about how I am never in any pictures, so HERE is a picture of me. I am pictured here with an ornmanet I received....cant you see the excitement on my face of having my picture taken??

(11.24.11) The morning of Thanksgiving, Mike got up early and went to the store to fetch the newspaper so we could scan out all the Black Friday ads. Here is Mike and I finding the good deals....and yes, my face shows all the seriousness I was

in finding what we wanted to seek out.

(photo courtesy of Emily Miller)

That afternoon, we had Turkey Day dinner. As always, our family does TWO Turkeys. This year we had one "Smoked" Turkey, and we ALWAYS do a "Fried" Turkey---mmmm my favorite!! My dad rocks at frying some Turkey, now. Pictured below are the turkeys.

(Photo courtesy of Emily Miller)

That evening, we set out for our Black Friday shopping. This year Toys-R-Us opened at 9:00pm on Thanksgiving, which was really NICE! And then Target was opening at midnight. So we first set out for Toys-R-Us. Call us crazy, but we LIKE our Black Friday shopping. Many people tease or diss on the people like us who go out and fight the crowds, but we actually enjoy it. We think its fun! Anyways....all of us got what we were set out for and we came home very satisfied.

The crew at Toys-R-Us----Emily, Ashley, Me, Mike, Heather, Blaine

After Toys-R-Us, Emily dropped Mike and I off at Target, she took home the people who wanted to head back home, and picked up another.

This time, Christian tagged along. Thankfully Emily stopped and picked up some Hot Chocolate for us since it was freezing outside! (Freezing for the South, that is)

We all got home about 1am and then we all crashed for the night. Not too bad for this years Black Friday Shopping trip. Again, we all came home very satisfied.

(11.25.11) On Friday afternoon, we all headed out to "Grandpa's Farm" where we got to ride the 4-wheelers, play horseshoes, the girls enjoyed the tire swing, took family pictures (BLAH), and we all got to enjoy some dutch oven dinner.

Grandbabies on the tire swing

Addie and Zoey on the swing

Addison and daddy on the 4-wheeler

Me and my girls going for a ride

The guys built an outdoor "playpen" for the little kids...we did it b/c if you look you can see the cement patch in the top right corner of the pic...that is surrounding a fire pit....so the "Playpen" was built to keep the little ones out of the fire.

That Saturday everybody left and headed to their homes. Thanks again Mom and Dad for hosting all of us. A special thanks to the Russians for giving up their beds for us--namely Christian and Cameron. Until the next Holiday.....Happy Holidays everyone!