Our Thanksgiving

It’s hard to believe that the holidays are upon us! I feel like this year has just flown by. We certainly hope that everyone had a safe & wonderful Thanksgiving! We know that we did!

We had Thanksgiving lunch with Travis’ family – Gramme & Granddad Snead, Great-Grandma Smith, Aunt Jenn & Uncle Brian (and Aunt Jenn’s little peanut in her tummy – Tyler’s going to be a cousin in June!). It was a great meal and we had a nice time visiting. While Tyler napped, I perused the Black Friday ads and determined that Travis needed to get to Sears before 5:00 am the next day to get a front-loading, high efficiency washer & dryer pair that were on a BIG TIME sale. That was nice of me, wasn’t it?

Anyway, after we left Gramme & Granddad’s house, we made our annual trip to Wal-Mart. Before Tyler, it would be that we would only make a trip to Wal-Mart once a year, and that was on Thanksgiving Day. While I enjoy Wal-Mart’s prices and selection, I’ve never been a fan of the crowds, the parking, and so on. Thanksgiving Day is heaven in Wal-Mart. No one there, no lines, no fighting, no parking issues. It’s truly a lovely experience. But we’ve found ourselves shopping at Wal-Mart more often now, so we’ve had to just learn to deal with it. It was nice to have one calm shopping day there though. We were able to buy lots of gifts for our Salvation Army Angel, a tradition that Travis & I both grew up with and hope to continue with Tyler so that he can see that Christmas is also about helping others in need, not just about toys for him.

On Friday, we packed up and headed to Browns Summit, NC to visit Nana Scoggin. She had a full house there – Heath, Maureen, Kayla, & Bryan; Nathan, Donna, Jessi, & Becky; Harry, Jayne, & Harry Lee; Kevin, Debi, Kevin Jr., Mike, & Amy. It was so nice to see everyone. We hadn’t had the opportunity to see them in quite a while. Tyler had a great time playing with his cousins (well, my cousins, so I guess they’re his cousins once removed?). He has a blast riding in the golf cart, and visiting with the miniature horses across the street. I’m glad that we were able to get down there, and hope to make another trip sooner rather than later.

And I’ll leave you with this. Tyler has recently become attached to a stuffed teddy bear that I have. This bear was a gift that I gave to my friend Heidi in college when her best friend passed away. Years later, it shows up on my doorstep after Mom’s death. Heidi wanted to share him. Well, this bear has been in our bedroom for 2 years now, and Tyler never really noticed it. Until about a week and a half ago, when he picks it up, gives it a hug, and decides that this bear must go everywhere with him. I asked him what this bear’s name is and he replied “Marcie”. Marcie is the name of his daycare director (who also has a little girl in Tyler’s class). Marcie does everything with us, but we won’t let her leave the house (unless it’s an out of town visit). Marcie said she’s flattered that he’s named his bear after her, and I guess it just shows that he truly is well taken care of at daycare. And that’s extremely comforting.