kelli&mark: Over the river and through the woods

Before I talk about our Thanksgiving, I have some great news:

About 15 minutes after we walked in the door yesterday our neighbor came over with 3 packages for me. I instantly wanted to rip them open, because I knew what was inside, but I didn't, I tried my hardest to be patient and friendly. I talked to her and her cute daughter for a few minutes, popped some bubble wrap with them and then the second the door closed and we said goodbye I ran to the scizors and cut the boxes open. It was my camera, free camera bag and memory card! I spent a couple hours reading the manual, learning what each button means and playing around with it. There's so much to learn! But I can't wait to start taking pictures with it!

Now on to the important stuff, Thanksgiving!
We went to Draper, UT to my grandma's house, it was such a great week. As soon as we got to her house on Wednesday afternoon my grandma and I went straight to the kitchen to start prepping for Thanksgiving dinner. After making the most amazing cranberry crunch from fresh cranberries, apples and walnuts, the glaze for the turkey, and prepping the stuffing, we decided we should probably make dinner because Mark and Rachel were hungry. After dinner we all sat and caught up on life and the future.
My grandma recently got a puppy named Teddy, he's so cute and fun. We played with him for hours. The highlight of our time down there for Mark was egging Teddy on to chasing the cats and attacking them. He loved hearing the cats hiss and growl at Teddy and swat him.
Thursday morning I woke up bright and early, ok so it was only 8:15 but that's early for vacation, to help my grandma start cooking. We cooked all day until about 2 or 3 in the afternoon! But we had no accidents or anything non-edible, it was a success! Everything was delish! We went with a fruity, sweet base for the turkey and gravy, it had an apple flavoring, it was soo good! We even stuffed the turkey with granny apples! Then we went to an extended family members home for dessert.

That night was Black Friday, and me, Mark and Rachel decided we wanted to be part of the holiday shopping madness! I wanted to go to Best Buy and fight for a 42" tv for $200, my claws were out, but when we saw the line at 5:00 was wrapped all the way around the building we crossed that off our list. Mark saw a Walmart add that had dvd's for $1.95 so he wanted to go there {really, Walmart?! That's the only store we have in Rexburg and he wants to go to Walmart?!} but I was up for it because they started their deals at 10:00 instead of midnight. We got there right at 10:00 and saw a feeding frenzy of people tackling each other for dvds. Rachel's eyes lit up and she ran right into the mess. I saw people getting trampled and smashed so I stayed back and Rachel handed me piles of dvds to go through. At one point she got sat on! I was amazed to see how people turned into animals and gave no regard to people around them, just to save a few bucks on dvds. I guess we aren't as refined or evolved as we like to believe we are. After about 20 minutes in the dvd section, everything was obliterated, the only thing left was a handful of dvds that no one wanted, like the Despicable Me short films that everyone thought was actually the Despicable Me movie...so shady Walmart! We walked around to see what other deals they had. We got to the video game section, full of smelly nerdy boys. Mark stood in the back trying to see what they had while Rachel and I got aggressive and demanded boys to hand us games and tell us prices. Sometimes it's good to be a girl, ok most of the time!

Then I found a 30piece tupperwear set on sale for $6! The joys of being a wife :)

We weaved in and out of people to find the shortest line, jackpot! While in line we had a crack up of a lady behind us. She wanted to talk about all the movies, hold up each one and tell us what she thought of it, then she wanted to see our selection of movies. She kept talking to everyone around her about the movies. She also enjoyed telling us that she just got off work at 7/11 and loves working there. At one point Rach and I found crumb donuts in line for $1 so we grabbed one to share and she got so excited and asked us to grab her one. Needless to say, she made waiting in line much more entertaining.

After getting out of the white trash that Walmart is, we headed to target. We parked at about 11:15 and thought that because it was warm at 35degrees we could wait in line for 45 minutes. We walked across the parking lot and headed to the line. It looked short! We can do this! Then as we got closer people in line started telling us the line was wrapped all the way around the huge target. I started feeling like Ralphie when he took Randy to get in line at the department store to see Santa and they thought the line was really short until the grumpy man said "hey kid, the line starts back there, this is the front of the line!" I no longer cared that it was 30degrees warmer than it was last year, by the time we actually got in to target there would be nothing left! So we headed home.

Black Friday was fun, but I want to have things to actually fight for. We never have anything we really need, we just go to be a part of the excitement.

Friday I headed to the Fashion Mall with Rach and Grandma Bev in hopes of finding a new dress. Unsuccessful, of course, whenever I go looking for something specific I never find it. But we did have a great lunch a the Corner Bakery.

That night Mark and I headed to Bountiful to visit his grandparents that we never get to see because they live in Arizona half the year. We took them to dinner at Chuck-a-Rama...I was skeptical, not sure what the food would taste like. On the way to dinner we came across some deer trying to cross the road. We stopped right next to a big one and Mark's grandma rolled down her window and started singing Rudolf The Rednosed Reindeer to it! I was dying! Mark's grandparents are hilarious, they argue over what they said, or when something was. The best part was once we got to dinner, his grandma was sooo excited, she loves buffets. She uses a walker that has a little seat on it. She took a couple laps around to see all the food they had to offer and then loaded up her plate and put it on the seat of the walker as she walked back to the table, she did this about 3 times. It was awesome. And I can say I was pleasantly surprised by the food there. I guess getting old isn't going to be so bad as long as we live/retire by a Chuck-A-Rama!

Saturday, Mark and I went to do the rest of our Christmas shopping! We are dunzo! Well except for Mark's Christmas gift. I have no idea what to get him! I feel like such a horrible wife. I have all these things that I want constantly and he never wants anything. I should be able to come up with a great surprise gift to give him but I can't think of anything! It's killing me.
That night we all went to Tocanos Brazillian grill! It was so delicious! Rachel and I had never been there so it was a new experience for us, so of course we had to try a little bit of everything from fried bananas to chicken heart, which let me tell you is really rubbery, it tastes like chicken at first but the after taste is disgusting!

So to sum our 5 days up, it was a wonderful Thanksgiving. I'm so grateful to have such a great relationship with my grandma and be able to spend this holiday with her. I'm grateful for a wonderful, loving, supportive husband who loves my grandma and encourages me to spend time with her. I'm grateful for my sister even though we fight like none other. I'm also so grateful for my family and I can't wait to see them in 3 weeks! I'm grateful for civilization, even though I don't really like Utah and I don't want to live there, it is a nice break from Rexburg and I love seeing the lights of the cities at night and of course love all the malls and outrageous plethora of food places in each city.

Sorry this was a novel of a post but here are some pictures: