An Icy Thanksgiving

I worked on Thanksgiving day with the highlight being a visit from OU's head coach Bob Stoops. Turns out that floating to the hemoc unit on holidays has it's perks. I was also given home made tamales by a patient's family, which were amazing and should possibly be on the menu for our next Thanksgiving. My plan for the rest of the week/weekend was a cozy three day stay-cation at home with our family. I had plans to decorate for Christmas and clean our house. Capped off with our Blakley Thanksgiving Sunday afternoon. Friday the rain started and the temperatures began to drop as the day went on. When I laid down to go to sleep I heard one of the worst noises. The sound of sleet hitting against my bedroom window. I should mention I have pretty bad PTSD from the ice storm of 2002.

Not good to be on your last dose of NyQuil going into an ice storm.

At one in the morning we officially were on the lamp. By the morning our house was very cold and very dark, and none of us had gotten much sleep. We thought that surely our power would come back on soon, but it turned out things would get worse before they got better, sleeting and icing all day Saturday. Somehow my sister, who lives approximately three miles from here still had power so she graciously let us move into her house for the weekend, as we waited for our power to come back on. The good news is that Abbey has a beautiful, big, new house that fit all of us comfortably.

I did not get any icicles harvested in this storm, but I did have flash back of harvesting them off of medal gates at the farm so I could have ice water. I'm telling you PTSD from ice storms is a real thing people.

 Of course Zane loved the ice, especially since his new coat had arrived the day before. Our tree in the front yard did survive with only one big branch breaking off from the top. We obviously need a chainsaw for Christmas.

We spent Saturday crafting, playing, and preparing for the feast. The kids played well together, watching too much TV, and played too many video games, and we were fine with it. It was a cold, rainy day, perfect for doing nothing. We went back to our house a few times to see if the electricity had come back on. Of course it had not. The scenes of ice covered trees lining the roads is literally what my personal hell would look like. Add in the sound of tree branching cracking, then crashing into water (as heard on the pond across the street from my house) and I had a few minor panic attacks. So we camped out and watched the Sooners win The Big Twelve Championship Saturday evening. Not a bad end to a kind of tough day.

I helped Zane, Rowan, and Maggie made Santas and Elves, all very festive!

Sunday was Blakley Thanksgiving and boy did we feast. It was a classic Thanksgiving menu and everything was delicious. The kids helped set and decorate the tables. Zane was very proud of his napkin folding skills. The little boys wore around the turkey hats and spent most of the day running turkey races around kitchen. Turns out there is nothing cuter than little boys in turkey hats.

 I taught Maggie all my secrets of mashed potato making, like never tell people how much butter or salt actually went into the potatoes, use Great Plains Bison Beef rub to spice it up, and always try to bring in the next generation to help you do your job. I loved her help!

Abbey had some champagne flutes she wasn't too attached to so everyone, including the little boys, drank sparkling grape juice out of fancy glasses. This was so fun and all the children were very careful with their grown up glasses. I'm proud to report no grape juice was spilled on the white table cloth! The little boys once again took home the prize for cuteness at the table. They toasted with their glasses and drank lots of red and white grape juice. Zane requested a turkey leg, like the one he had with Uncle Able at the fair. I'm not sure he is ready for eating turkey off the bone, but he gave it a valiant effort.

 Cheers!

It became clear after the meal that I had not been training properly for Thanksgiving. I have been religiously tracking what I eat and how many calories I take in everyday for months now. I know you couldn't tell by looking at me, but I have been working very hard at this with little results. So needless to say I have not had a huge, carbo loaded meal in a long time, and I did not handle it well. I felt like I might have been slipping into a diabetic coma, but after lots of moaning on the couch and being a bit of daze the rest of the evening I pulled through and was back at the gym bright and early this morning. 

In good news our power came back on around noon so when the celebrations were finished we got to come back to our little house that we had left in an utter state of disarray Saturday morning, when we left in a blind panic. I was sad that I didn't get all the decorating and cleaning done that I had planned on doing, but I did get more scrapbooking done than I've done in probably two years so that was very exciting, relaxing, and fun. Many thanks to the whole Richards clan for taking us in. I am very thankful to be surrounded by family here and so glad we all get along so well. I'm also so happy that for the Richards family that they have such a big beautiful home where we can have big gatherings without feeling cramped. What a blessing!