Thanksgiving Eve: I decided to get all fancy and actually make some of the food ahead of time. Unfortunately for my electric mixer, I forgot that the oven vents heat through the back burner.
Thanksgiving: We had a very enjoyable day with Brian's Italian coworker and his Colombian-American fiancee. Since I didn't take pictures, here are some illustrations I found to depict our day:
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And then the conversation got a lot funnier:
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| Boopitiy, Boppitity! |
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| (except for it didn't make us sad. It made us laugh.) |
And then we settled in for this marathon on AMC:
Which, to be honest, was quite a bit like watching it in surround sound as both Federico and Cristi explained the differences in normal Italian versus the Sicilian dialect. I demonstrated my Sicilian-language skills by reading aloud the English subtitles. I feel I did a good job.
Black Friday: Brian insisted on going with me shopping. He felt that he should have a say in the Christmas gifts. I concurred, and he and Nolan went out to the mall with me on Thursday night. Brian lasted about three hours (although he tried to blame his tiredness on Nolan). I ended up staying out until three in the morning.
The Rest of the Weekend: We enjoyed an expensive evening at the Gaylord (tee-hee!) Hotel. It offers a huge Christmas display (not holiday. We're in Texas. We say Christmas.) made out of two trillion pounds of ice. Or maybe two million. I don't recall. For only $30 a person and $10 for parking, you can walk through 9-degree weather and look at frozen water in the displays of the nutcracker.
They had this super cool (literally. Hey-o!) slide made of ice. Nolan went on it twice.
It was a really cool (literally. Hey-oh!) display. But I'm not quite sure how the Statue of Liberty wearing a Santa jacket fits in with the Nutcracker theme.
Also, the place was crazy-crowded, which made for some awkward photo ops (and I was seriously getting annoyed with the large group of people in front of us who had to stop in front of every display, pose for a picture, and then move three feet to get the next made-of-ice toy as the backdrop).
But we still managed to get a couple of decent shots.
The last display was of the Nativity, complete with lights and narration.
The house: Things are still coasting along with our new home. We are still scheduled for a Friday, December 20 closing. Huzzah! I was in there last night and I noticed that they had put up the tile back splash in the kitchen. I'm very glad I decided not to install it myself.
That is all for now, friends. Thanks for reading!
