Thanksgiving in Oklahoma!

My family has just arrived home from the great state of Oklahoma, where we spent the thanksgiving holiday. It was such a blast. My Aunt Kathy (mom's oldest sister) lives there with her two children and their families. Aaron and his wife Brandi have two cuter than cute little boys Alex(6) and Parker(4). Kristen and her husband Joe have gorgeous little darling girls Kennady(4) and Mya(8mo). They are so much fun and we had such a nice weekend... let me break it down.

Wednesday began at 4:30am when Dad, Mom, and Tyler and I started loading up the van. We accomplished a 16 hour drive, in just one day. My picked up Shawn and Nicole at 5:45 and headed out of the city. There were 6 of us in one car!! It was a tight fit, but we are pros. The 16 hours was spent listening to music, watching some of the second season of the office on the van's DVD player, sleeping, and stopping for the occasional quick meal. We also completed one of our thanksgiving traditions by watching Plane, Trains, and Automobiles... it is a wonderful holiday movie... highly recommended.

We arrived in Newcastle, OK a little after 11pm. My parents and Tyler spent the first night at Kathy's while Shawn, Nicole, and I went to Joe and Kristen's for the night.

THANKSGIVING DAY/BIRTHDAY!! This year my birthday landed on thanksgiving (it does that every 5 years or so). It was a very odd day because I kept forgetting that it was my birthday... even typing this blog I had almost forgotten my birthday had passed. My birthday is usually accompanied by some sort of party or small get-together, but this was the first year that I didn't have that. Every time someone wished me a happy birthday I would be so surprised! It was a nice surprised though. I am 22 years old now... Yay me! We all headed over to Aunt Kathy's house for the meal. The meal was delicious.

After the food I opened presents. I got some great stuff!! Kennady was more than happy to help hand me gifts... a couple of times before I had put one present dow she was "helping me start" on another one. Kennady seemed pretty unimpressed by the gifts I got, until I unwrapped The Little Mermaid DVD... she was pretty jazzed about that! It was so funny.

We took a nice walk through the forrest by Kathy's house, and after the woods my dad played "dragon" and "the finger game" with the three kids. My dad played these games with us when we were little and even played them with Aaron, Noel and Kristen in Oklahoma. The kids had so much fun.

Our tradition is as soon as the Thanksgiving meal is complete, Christmas music is put on to usher in the season... Frank Sinatra always starts it off with his rendition of Jimgle Bells... priceless.

The party didn't end at Kathy's though. Shawn, Nicole, Tyler, Joe, and Kristen sat out on Joe and Kristin's back porch and had quite a time. It was hilarious reminiscing about the farm in Wisconsin, Kristen's visit to AZ over 10 years ago, and how they should move out live near us.

Friday I participated in a pass-time that I have never participated in before - Black Friday Shopping. Now when I worked at the gap I worked on Black Friday, but this year I actually did some shopping. Kristen, Nicole and I drove over to Kohl's to meet up with the boys who had gotten started on the shopping much earlier than we did. They stood in line for almost 2 hours while us girls shopped and tried on clothes... the place was so packed that the 3 of us shared a fitting room (which tripled the amount of clothes i got to try on). After the purchases were made, we all headed over to the movie theater to see Casino Royale... yes is was my second time seeing it, I love it that much!

Then we all headed to Chikasha, OK to look at their Christmas Lights display... It was way cool to see all the displays and colors and how it reflected off the pond in the middle. I held got to hold Mya for most of the night. She even fell asleep in my arms. I don't know if you know this, but Mya is the cutest little baby ever! She has the most precious smile and is just so happy! We passed her around the whole weekend and just loved her to pieces. It wouldn't be Christmas without my family singing Christmas Carols as we walked around (with harmoney and everything), so of course we sang and sang and sang. Alex, Parker, and Kennady ran around the place from one lights display to the other... They were a blast.

Then Saturday morning we left and headed back home... this time we broke the trip up into two days... thank goodness.

It was a great trip!! I hope it becomes some what of a tradition from now on!!