Thursday, March 19, 2009

November notes

Now that it's March of 2009, let's talk about November of 2008. I'll do it quickly, in bullet form:

  • Due to my grandmother's failing memory, I decided to make a quick trip to SC to ensure that we would have at least one more visit while she could still remember my kids. We had a nice time, and even took her on a couple outings to see the James Island County Park Holiday Festival of Lights (A-MAZ-ING, and it gets bigger and better every year, you really must go sometime) and to Charles Towne Landing.















  • On the way down, right at the bottom of Exit 266A (366?, 166?, help my memory Alice) in VA to be exact, my car died. It lost its ability to shift gears. So we transferred to a rental, left the car at a dealership in Alexandria and continued on our way. It was a much bigger hassle than I made it sound like here. Then on the way home, we had to do the whole transfer thing back to our repaired car. Overall, a royal pain in the ass, but it could have been so much worse; the dealership (Mazda) and the rental car agency (Enterprise) made everything go extremely smoothly. I'm sure it didn't hurt that one of my brothers-in-law works for Mazda Corporate, but hey, in that situation you'll take any advantage you can get.



  • Meg's marching band unit won The 2008 Calvacade of Bands Grand Championship in its division.
  • For the first time in, well, EVER, we stayed home for Thanksgiving due to a marching band performance that day. Now, I am one of those who feel that the matriarch of the family deserves to relax on a holiday just as much as everyone else, so I don't do the monster meal thing. Our Christmas tradition is grazing heavy hors d'oeuvres and sweets all day long. So for Thanksgiving, we had pretty much decided to order in a Thanksgiving feast or go out. UNTIL my husband went to Sam's Club. We had a ghetto Thanksgiving meal that I challenge you to rival. Here was the menu:

    - Hormel sliced turkey in gravy
    - Country Crock mashed sweet potatoes
    - Country Crock stuffing
    - Canned cranberry sauce (OK, that's the same EVERY year)
    - Pillsbury crescent rolls

    All microwavable except the rolls, which take less than 10 minutes to bake. Verdict? The turkey was pretty crappy, but Country Crock does a pretty decent job on their stuff. So, um, yeah. I am SO ready to head to the in-laws' place this year.


Some of my mom's boyfriend's family's pets:







11 comments:

Nowheymama said...

I love the photo of the four girls. Beautiful.

Tess said...

Well, you KNOW where I stand on Ghetto Foods. Heh.

Great pics!

Alice said...

crap! i don't know my exits, unfortunately. but i'm guessing it was at the bottom of the beltway where 495 merges back into 95, if you were in alexandria? :-)

my gosh, thanksgiving seems SO far away now. although that meal doesn't sound half bad right now...

Jess said...

What an awesome month! Except the car drama, of course. Your kids are so gorgeous, especially all together like that. Too sweet.

Shelly said...

Great pictures! I'm so glad you had one more nice visit with your grandmother. And yeah, that ghetto thanksgiving sounds awesome!

Astarte said...

Are those seriously his pets?! Does he work in a zoo?!

Anonymous said...

I want a zebra as a family pet.

earlcapps said...

Great pics - I'll agree. But it's gotta be darn tough hauling all those kids on such a long trip!

When I was a kid, we spent three years living outside of DC, and would make the trip to the Lowcountry twice a year, towing a 21' camper along with us.

Fiona Picklebottom said...

astarte - He doesn't work in a zoo. Technically the camel and zebra belong to his ex-wife and the goats belong to one of his daughters, who also has a couple parrots, peafowl and a raccoon. His son has bison and some kind of Austrian long-horn thing. They have normal pets like dogs as well. :)

Anonymous said...

Really interesting to see the whole month in review. You think you'll ever catch up?

Pickles and Dimes said...

These are GREAT pics. Heh - caution: alligators!

That's so cool about the band championship. Ah, I miss marching band.