Thanksgiving and my first and last Black Friday

Thanksgiving was delicious. Really, really yummy. I helped my cousin (my husband's cousin, but I claim her as mine, cause she is that awesome) make the turkey this year. We got together on the 23rd and cooked all day. We attempted to bake an amazing pull-apart pumpkin bread. I decided to be brave and follow that darn complicated recipe... and it tasted awful. Really bad. I am sure it was the recipe's fault. 

The turkey turned out ever so much better. Shirlyn read about soaking the turkey in a brine overnight. It. Was. Amazing. Hands down best turkey I have ever had. And, it was pretty. Observe:

 

 You are drooling aren't you? Mhm. Me too. The worst thing about holiday turkeys with families as big as ours, is that there is never leftovers. Always a bummer. 

Here we all are, gathered about the table, waiting to give thanks for the food. Also, I must mention that my mother in law made mutton curry. Oh my goodness. There was too much incredible on that table at one time. I would love to be a vegetarian one day, I really would. But wow, that turkey and curry really set me back a few years in arriving at that place.

 I think we need to look at this guy again. Just too yummy.

Pardon the blur. These are the summation of my photography that day.  I didn't get any pictures of the lovely sari that my mother in law stuck me in I, or of the dinner at my parent's house either. Know that both were great.

That evening, I brought my sister home with me, to go on our very first Black Friday adventure ever the next morning. She is ridiculously adorable. I sort of hate her sometimes.

She slept in our bathtub. I am a great sister. It was much cozier than the couch. Right Abi? We filled it up with pillows and couch cushions and shut her in for the evening. She lit a candle and read, and in the morning I gave her a banana. It was like a B&B.

We have never gone before. For several years when I was a teen, we were not allowed to go because of "the danger." Hearing about someone who got trampled to death at WalMart didn't help us out. For the years after that when I could drive myself I was "not allowed to take a family car out on the roads on This Day." People get in major accidents you know. I am now an "adult" with my own car. So this year, we were determined to brave the danger and venture forth. Mom good naturedly made sure to remind us that we had better be careful, and that I had to take my own car, because hers were not allowed to head near certain death fender-benders in the parking lot.

We got up at 4:30 and got to the mall at 4:40. Unbeknownst to me, some of the stores in the mall opened at midnight. So much to our amazement, it was already majorly crowded. We came for the express purpose of getting a scratch off card from H&M at 5. After being smashed by strangers against the glass walls for a good half hour while mall security made angsty people form a single line, we got one. We each got $10. The dude in front of me got $25, and the three people behind us (all of whom were obnoxious) got $75, and farther down the line I heard a voice shout "$300! OH MY GOSH!"  I am not bitter. I was thankful for the $10... So we shoved into the store, found a deal or two, zipped over to American Eagle (where I got a pencil case and a tank top) and left. I had Abi dropped off at home, unscathed mind you, and was back in bed by 6:50. The car was fine. I was fine. Abi was fine. We even found a deal or two.While I love a good sale and am a morning person extrovert, I have decided that it isn't worth it every year.

Thanksgiving is over! On to... Spring? Really craft stores? I thought Christmas was next?