(Late) Sunday Social – Thanksgiving Edition

It’s Sunday Monday Social day where Ashley and Neely post questions each week for people to answer on their blogs and a linkup.  I’m posting late because on Sunday I was recovering from our red-eye return flight from our trip to Vegas!  My sister’s boyfriend contacted me last Sunday about flying us out to Vegas to be there as a surprise for his proposal to my sister on Thursday!  We checked out flights, got permission at work, talked to our friends about keeping our brand new dog, and booked our flight on Monday.  It was definitely the quickest trip I ever planned!  It was an absolute blast, of course, and an amazing proposal.  She said yes, of course, and we were so happy to be there along with her closest friends!

Onto this week’s questions….

All about Thanksgiving

1. Favorite Thanksgiving Memory:  The week before Thanksgiving in 2008, we took our only other last-minute trip to watch the Columbus Crew win the MLS Cup in L.A.  The Crew is our hometown pro soccer team and Lo is a huge fan.  I’m a fair-weather fan, literally – if it isn’t nice outside, I’m probably not going to the game.  But we could count on good weather in L.A. and it good be a once in a lifetime change, so I went for it – and it was a blast.We came back to Ohio on Sunday night, worked a couple of days, and then went home to my family’s Thanksgiving.  Summer flew in from Vegas that week, so it was even better.  We were missing one sister, but here’s 5 of us:
   

   Last year was pretty great too – Summer was in town again and we bought a bunch of wine the night before.  We ended up drinking more than we expected that night and I had to make a last minute dash to our tiny town convenience store to grab two more bottles because we were nervous we’d run out.  They seriously had like 8 bottles of wine to choose from, and only 1 that I would even consider drinking.

2. Favorite Thanksgiving Food:  I know it sounds crazy, but I don’t love thanksgiving food.  I guess I’d say vegetables, but not casseroles.  Or maybe the appetizers – there’s always something good to snack on before dinner.  Traditional t-day food; turkey, mashed potatoes, stuffing, green bean casserole, rolls, pumpkin pie….I don’t love them.  Last year, I made a Cabbage and Chedder Gratin, which I loved, and chipotle cranberry relish…so I’ll go with those. I may make them again this year.
3. What is a Thanksgiving Tradition you and your family have?:  Everyone who can make it in town gathers at my mom’s house throughout the day.  We aren’t good at following a set time to eat, so it’s usually pretty random.  At some point someone says it’s time to eat and people start filling plates.  It’s very non-traditional – there’s usually 25-30 or so people gathered all throughout the house, some of whom ate earlier with their in-laws, so it’s a little hard to organize.  We watch football and drink wine – I guess that’s a tradition.  I’d like to have more traditions when Lo and I have a family, and I’m sure we had some when we were younger, but now we just try to get together and visit – that’s the most important thing.  If we have it with Lo’s family, they are a little more traditional – all sitting down to eat together and saying prayer.
4. Show us a favorite Thanksgiving picture(or 5) from years past:
   I didn’t look too hard, but here’s more from 2008.  Lo, Summer, and I, and 5 of our nieces and nephews (they look so young! they are all growing up now):
   Impromptu “play” with Lydia and Gannon, assistance by Emma:Lydia and Gannon hanging on Uncle Lo:I didn’t have many good ones from 2009, but somehow my brother-in-law caught a bird with his hand (he let it go and it was unharmed). I’m still not sure how he caught it…I don’t think he was really trying.

   And I used my new swap faces app on everyone…one of my favorites is my parents.  I think my dad had just woken from a nap and he clearly needed to shave his neck, as evidenced by the neck hair that is underneath my mom’s face:
   And Lo and I (scary!!):
   

5. What are you most looking forward to about this Thanksgiving?  We are heading to my parent’s for Thanksgiving again since Christmas falls during the week (and so we’ll go to his parent’s for Christmas).  It’s the first time everyone will get to meet Boof, so we’re pretty excited about that.  My niece Lydia has already warned that we probably won’t be bringing her back with us because she intends to steal her.  We’ll probably head back to Columbus on Saturday so we have some time to relax.

Leave me one or all of your answers in the comments (or a link to your post if you participated!).