Thanksgiving turkeys

Well here's a general update and a mention of our, um, interesting Thanksgiving. Enjoy!

I worked Wednesday and Thursday nights, and we had planned to leave Friday morning for Texas, returning Sunday. Can you say whirlwind trip?

Wednesday night was a killer. Very heavy assignments and my coworkers weren't really able to help much as they had de-toxing patients ('tis the season!) who were constantly pulling out tubes and squirreling their way out of bed no matter how much they were restrained (sorry if that's TMI!). We saw security a whole bunch that week LOL.

Wednesday before I went to work my mom emailed me and said that she and dad were coming up from Alabama to visit Papa (who lives 1 hour west). They were doing a 2-day trip and thought that I'd be at work by the time that they arrived on Thursday, but they'd drop in to the unit anyway. Thankfully, they arrived very early so they didn't get to hear some of the words being shouted by our favorite guy going through the DTs LOL.

They arrived so early that they even offered to take us out to dinner. They had noticed that Ryan's (a buffet place) was open, so off we went. It was pretty crowded, but they had plenty of food and we found a big table right away. Cool! The food was pretty good, but let's just say that there was some interesting people watching LOL. I don't know what the usual clientele for Ryan's is, but it was definitely interesting that night LOL. Hey, at least I had turkey and dressing on T'day. I was just planning on having some Lean Cuisine or something at work LOL.

Tom dropped me off at work and my parents headed on to Papa's house. In the morning, Tom picked me up, we loaded up the van, and we headed out to see Papa on the way to Texas. It had been quite a while since I'd seen him and he still looks great (living at an assisted living place). On the way we saw the new people who bought Papa's house and they were decorating it really nicely for Christmas :)

Had a fairly uneventful trip to Texas, but for some reason I couldn't sleep until we were past Norman, OK, and I woke up in North Dallas. So I had about 2-3 hours sleep tops. We get to Tom's folks' house and I just crashed.

Unfortunately, Chris didn't crash. Apparently, the boy stayed up all night, playing with toys and eating tons of candy (they keep stashes everywhere) including MIL's beloved dark chocolate. Oh crap. Usually I can't sleep when we first get there and I stay up and watch TV and make sure everyone is asleep. Great.

The next day Chris was just bouncing all over the place (hmm... wonder why?!?). About 3pm the boy just crashed. He was crying, just totally wiped out. But he wouldn't go to sleep. At one point I was just holding him while he cried and he said he was so tired and just wanted a nap. So I took him back to one of the bedrooms and laid down with him, but he just couldn't get to sleep. Tom came in and relieved me and got him to go to sleep. But then I got tired and went to sleep and woke up about 10. Gotta love night shift schedules! I had missed dinner, so I wound up going out to Whataburger and getting a breakfast taquito. yummy!

Back to Saturday's meal. I had assumed, when we told the inlaws that we were coming 600 miles for Thanksgiving, that we would be having the main dinner on Saturday. I brought some little treats but didn't have time to really bake anything, since the food would have gotten a little stale between the time I had to bake and the time that we would have left. Well I didn't have anything to worry about. We had leftovers. Stale bread and leftover turkey and ham. And they talked about how good the green beans and sweet potatoes were. But there weren't any left. They barely had any pie, also. Now I'm not one to typically expect the red carpet treatment, but hell, we busted our asses to get there on very little sleep. And all they could do was give us the leftovers and complain about our children. I'm not really feeling like hurrying back. Oh and BTW, we had a good crowd for Saturday lunch. It's not like they had to do it on Thursday because people were working. They just didn't want to include us.

OTOH, we did get so see my nephew Casey, who is just a great kid, and my niece Tatum, who is 9 months old, cuter than cute, and trying to stand. What a doll!

Sunday I was awakened twice, with the mention that the inlaws had to go to church and a funeral so we had to "git". So I rounded up the kids really quickly and Tom later told me that there really wasn't that much of a rush. The whole weekend his folks just sniped at the kids, so I really didn't think they wanted us there at all. So why should we hang around, KWIM? This is the LAST time that I bust my butt or feel guilty about not being able to come for the holidays. I'm going to Christmas in Alabama and getting to see my brother and SIL (whom I adore) so I'm just going to focus on that LOL. Next year, they can come see us. Unfortunately, the Ellis celebration was in Austin this year. I think next year, with 2 incomes, we need to see about flying down there to see some great people who love us :)