Thanksgiving Weekend 2009

Wednesday evening we attended the Thanksgiving Eve service at church. E, J, G, and F all had to sing, and they did a nice job.

Thursday morning we headed off to MN to visit my brother and his family for Thanksgiving. We got to their house at 3:00 and found nephew E and niece M waiting outside in their driveway for us. :) SIL L had the turkey roasting in the oven, and I helped her finish up with the dinner prep. Such a yummy meal we had!

Niece M and S

The next morning, I did something I've never done before ... I got up well before the crack of dawn to go shopping for deals on Black Friday!

SIL L and I were in line at Kohl's at 3:55 am. E and F have the coldest bedroom in the house, and I'd been talking about getting them some down comforters. Kohl's had all sizes of down comforters on sale for $30, and I had a 15% off coupon. Plus I got a $10 coupon for spending over $50. We were out of the store by 4:30.

Then we were off to Target which opened at 5:00. We got there at about 4:50, and the line was extraordinarily long; it went past two storefronts. However, I did manage to snag the doorbuster I'd wanted to get as a Christmas present for E, as well as a gift for our godson. I even scored a great deal on a zippered sweatshirt lined with sheep-type fleece for $10 which I happened to pass on the way to the registers. (I'd been telling Josh recently how I wanted a zippered sweatshirt.) We were back to the car by 4:40 and off to Kmart.

Kmart opened at 6:00, and we were there in plenty of time. The line there wasn't bad at all. When the doors opened, we went straight to the electronics dept where I wanted to get one of the doorbusters for F as a Christmas gift. I couldn't find it and asked one of the workers where it was. He told me they didn't have it, that not all of the stores had everything in the ad. I had the ad with me, and it said "minimum 6 per store". Misleading?!

Next on our list of stops was Wal-mart. We knew we weren't going to be in the lead on any doorbusters anymore by this time, but Wal-mart had another version of the gift I wanted for F which Kmart didn't have, so I thought we could atleast try. As I figured, the item I wanted was long gone, but I was able to pick up a couple of gifts for my nephews and S.

There was one more stop we wanted to make ... Menards. L let me off at the door to go in and see if it was still available while she, loving SIL that she is, drove next door to McDonald's to buy me a McCafe mocha. When I walked into Menards, I noticed that atleast half the people in line had the item I wanted. I asked one man in line where they were, and when I got back to where the item had been, it was gone. I wasn't surprised, and honestly, I wasn't too disappointed because the lines at Menards were insanely long, all the way back to the back of the store!

On the way back to L's house, we decided to make a quick stop at Walgreens to see if they still had an item similar to the one I wanted at Menards. They did, but it was no longer on sale; it was on sale the day before, on Thanksgiving itself. I didn't get it, but I did pick up a big 64 box of crayons and some packing tape.

And these are just the deals I got. L bought some things, too, but I won't say what since they were gifts for others!

We got back to L's house around 8:45 am to find everyone else up.

Later in the afternoon, after L and I had both taken naps, we took E, F, and niece M with us to JoAnn Fabrics. I wanted to see if I could find a deal on some fabric for the back of E's quilt. E found some mottled purple flannel she liked that was even on sale for $1.49/yd. I hadn't planned to buy the batting then, but it was 50% off, so I did, along with some thread for the quilt. While L took the girls back out to the van, I even managed to buy a couple more Christmas gifts for E (all on sale)! Sneaky! Sneaky! :)

Over the weekend, J and nephew J spent quite a bit of time working together to build some roller coasters with K'nex. Here they are with their first completed coaster.

Meanwhile, Josh spent much of his time tiling J and L's shower that he'd helped fix when we were there last summer. Over the time we were there, he got it all done except for the grout work.

Sunday morning after church we got a pretty good picture of all the cousins together.

Before Sunday lunch, all the males (except for S) went outside to play a game of touch football in the backyard. They looked like they had a lot of fun, and it was fun to watch them, too, especially from behind the window in the warm house! :)

After finishing lunch, we left for home. Traffic was pretty heavy, and for a while we were only able to go between 45 and 55 on the interstate. We stopped at a Dairy Queen about 1 1/2 hrs from home and picked up some supper to eat in the van while we continued to drive. We arrived safely home at about 7:15 pm.

(Days 328-331 of 365)