THANKSGIVING WEEK-END!

Well we are back....goodness what a wonderful time away we had.  We decided to make it a little easier on ourselves this time and took two days to get there.  MUCH better on these old bones let me tell you.  We left leisurely around 10 am on Tues. morning, and pulled into Tuscon around 7 for a wonderful dinner at the Outback. After refreshing ourselves a bit, we decided to press on to Lordsburgh, New Mexico to spend the night.  Then the next morning after a WONDERFUL night of sleep, a good breakfast and just a short (at this point) 6 hours or so left to go, we headed out again.  We pulled into Mel's around 2 on Wed afternoon.  Little Sam had just taken a tumble off of their back porch (though he has maneuvered those steps many times) and so he had a bump on his little head and a skinned part too in all our pictures.  I think his mama was more upset than he was though, haha.  We visited the rest of the afternoon away and had a wonderful dinner Mel had prepared.  Little Sam just couldn't have been sweeter if he tried.  He LOVED his Mickey mouse blanket.  I wish you all could have seen him with it.  Drug it everywhere with him, kissed Mickey many times, and was just generally really happy with it.  Made this Grandma pleased for sure.  Thanksgiving morning we got up and Mel told us that poor Mike had woke up in the night with the stomach flu.  Guess many of his workers had been down with it, and now it was his turn.  He did manage to drag himself outside to work for a while anyway, and Mel and I made the pies and then got the turkey in the oven.  Mike came in then and slept for a few hours while we all just enjoyed the day.  Dinner was delicious, HOWEVER, I did learn a couple of things....NEVER try to make stuffing from "gluten free" bread.  Sooo not good...sigh.  And just so you know, stuffing is probably my favorite part of the meal, and mine is usually to die for, just saying, haha.  AND....we tried to transport frozen gluten free pie crusts from California to New Mexico, and that apparently is a big NO too, haha.  Our pie crust were so hard and rock like I never did get a bite of one, lol, though the filling of the pie was as good as ever thankfully.   Now again, my second favorite part of the meal is the pumpkin pie, and again I make a killer one if I do say so myself, so this was kind of a disappointment as well.  I did make a trial pie using the gluten free crust a couple of weeks ago, and it was quite tasty.  Not as good as my regular, but still pretty good.  Soo guess something must have happened in the transporting...sigh.  I wish I could just forget this whole "gluten free" diet, and wonder sometimes if it is even worth all the hassle, as my stomach is OFTEN a mess in spite of it.  But back to Thanksgiving.  The rest of the meal was soo good, and I honestly felt soo bad for Mike who only managed a bite or two.  On Friday Mike was feeling a little better and headed off outside to work and so the rest of us decided to go out to lunch and to visit a new boutique that opened up out there and to hit the local Hobby Lobby.  Mel wanted to pick up some new Christmas decorations.  What a good time we had!  Little Sam couldn't have been better.  How I have missed shopping with my girl.  We came home after that and put Sam down for a nap and turned on the Christmas music and decorated Mel's house.  Again, enjoyed every minute of it.  Mike came in early (I think he was still recovering ~ though he has a hard time admitting it.  Ever notice how a guy has such a hard time admitting he is sick?) and we visited, ate left overs and finished it off with a Christmas movie.  Jeff and I decided to head out a day earlier than we had originally planned (much to Mel's horror) and we got up super early and headed home on Sat.  Drove straight through...sooo long!  And! just as we were pulling in I started to feel puny, and by the time I hit my bed around 10 had the full on chills.  Yep, caught the old stomach bug myself.  I spent all day Sunday feeling pretty sick, and to tell you the truth, am still not feeling really good today either.  Not quite sure how Mike pulled it all off the way he did....oh youth I guess.  Anyway, thankfully, everyone else seems to still be fine.

Meanwhile, back at the old home front, I guess the week was a wild one.  Poor Michelle is back in the hospital as a small part of her incision became infected and she needs SUPER antibiotics!   She is feeling better thankfully, and should be getting out on Wed. if all goes well.  And then my younger sister (the one mom stays with on the week-ends) is also in the hospital with something that so far they can't even seem to determine.  She is soo sick and has excruciating headaches.  All soo overwhelming.  This made mom's week tough as she was staying with her while she was suppose to be on vacation.  I guess they had to call in a couple of the great grandkids to help with mom along with my other younger sister. I think they were all glad to see I had come home a day early.  Mom arrived here the same night I got sick, so now she has been exposed to this as well.  I am praying she doesn't get it!  Soo guess that about covers it.  I am very behind on my blog reading, and since I am pretty much glued to this chair today, hopefully I will catch up with all of you.  I can tell you we were soo glad our halls were already decked over here.  Oh, except for the tree.  Guess we will put that up on Sat.  Hope you all enjoy your week.  Here are some pictures of Sam and the rest of the grands as well on Thanksgiving...enjoy!

Love him soo much..didn't take nearly the amount of pics I should have...think I was just too busy enjoying him!

How cute are they?  They went up to their other grandparents cabin in Big Bear for the week-end!

Our middle son John (far right) joined our oldest son's Joe's (in the chair) family for the day, along with Leah's parents (her step dad upper left).  Such a good picture of them all.