I Missed Maine..

Ahhh Thanksgiving. My favorite holiday. No need to stress over what gifts to get everyone, or worry about credit card bills. Just lots of eating and family time.
So since the wife and I were down in Boston for Turkey day, we got to see most of the family. We started out the morning at the in-laws making 10 pounds of mashed potato's, 9 of which were going to my grandmother's house for dinner. Thankfully Sarah peeled all the potato's, so I just had to help mash them. (we have this great mashing pot that makes life so much easier too) That afternoon, we headed over to Gramma's a little early (12:30 or so) to get in a few minutes with Gramma and Papa before the crowd showed up. Two o'clock, dinner. So by 1:50 everyone was ready to go...
We had two tables set up. The first two pictures are of the same table, I just didn't get everyone in one shot. The table is packed with yummy food, although I gotta say, the preprepared/store bought vegetable have to go. Its Thanksgiving people! Everything should be somewhat fresh and not arrive in a disposable plastic container packaged by the nice people at whatever supermarket.
The other half of the picture. Notice there's only me (taking picture) my grandfather and father in the pictures representing the males...
Yeah, apparently the other guys couldn't tear themselves away from the tv for 20 minutes to eat dinner with the rest of us. So they sat at the traditional kiddie table near the tv. We also revert back to the 1950's during Thanksgiving as none of the women with husbands present would sit down until all the men had their food. Huh? C'mon ladies, you're better than that! They've got legs! If they're really that hungry they can get up and get the food themselves!! Oh and one more thing. I'm pushing for a ban on all soda's during a holiday dinner. Drinking Pepsi at Thanksgiving just ain't right. Someday, when I host a Thanksgiving at my house, there will be a posted set of rules that all guests have to adhere to. Sounds fun doesn't it! In years past, we've had huge crowds (cuz the family is so big) but as the years have gone on the crowd has thinned out. Part of me misses having 50 people crammed into my grandparents house, but another part of me likes the relative quiet of not having that many people.
So after dinner and lots of catching up (its times like this I miss Boston), we headed off to dinner with Sarah's side, which was at her mom's friends house. (both have very little family in the area, never mind just in general, so they always do holiday's together.) As you can see below, its a much smaller crowd...

Dinner was good. I'm more of a traditional guy, so the stuffing scared me (curry i think) but otherwise, everything was yummy. Its funny though, these are some of the most intelligent people I've ever been in the same room with, yet every time they get together the conversation always reverts back to cats. We could have conversations in french!, but nope, always about the curious things the cats do, or their odd habits or whatever. Its pretty funny actually.

Friday, the wife and I met up with Mike, Kim and baby Maya for lunch. Great seeing them as we really haven't had a chance to see them in a bit. Everything seems to be going well, and Maya is growing up so fast. She's about 13 months old now, but getting so big and learning sign language along with speaking! Can you believe that?!?!? We better hope that our kids get Sarah's genes, otherwise we could be in trouble haha.

Friday night was spent out with Liz and Rick. Liz and Sarah wandered around the mall, while Rick and I hung out at the new Met Steakhouse/bar in the mall. The bar area where we were sitting watching the Celtics game was open to the mall corridor, so it had a very airporty feel to it, but it was a pretty cool place to have an appetizer and a couple of beers. The weird lumberjack sitting next to me (trucker sox hat, early 90's style flannel shirt, and long johns sticking out from the ends of his sleeves) kept trying to jump into our conversation which was a little odd. But then again, he was also sipping a shot of vodka, while drinking a bud light and emailing/texting on his Blackberry, so whatever...

Saturday, the end. We finally headed home. I love being in Boston seeing everyone, but there's something to be said for being home. We're always rushing around trying to squeeze in as many visits as we can do in a short amount of time (because we really miss seeing everyone), so going home we can just relax. Now if people came to visit us, we wouldn't always have to run around all the time... I'm just saying... ;) We stopped in Freeport to return a couple of items we bought earlier in the week and to hit Starbucks. I ordered my drink with soy of course (stupid lactose intolerance) and when it was done, Sarah (being smarter than I am) told me to double check that they used soy and not milk. I said, nah, they must have, there's an 's' for soy on the cup. Approximately 2 hours lately, and thankfully home by then, I came to the unfortunate conclusion that they did indeed use milk and not soy. I now have a mortal enemy in that barrister and have learned an important lesson, always double check to make sure they used soy... Anyway, when we were about a mile from our exit, my new favorite uncle called and asked if we wanted to go shooting. So of course we floored it home, got some warm clothes, said hi to the cats and headed over to his house. My two uncles, Sarah, my cousin D and I loaded up the trucks and headed down to the pit for some clay shooting... My lovely wife in her stylin' vest (don't want any hunters getting confused). She didn't hit any of the clay pigeons... but then again it was darn cold out and its a little tougher to shoot when you can't feel your fingers. She was pretty comfortable with the gun though (12 gauge shotgun I believe), so now we need to find a gun club to join.
I on the other hand, am very comfortable shooting (all those years of Nintendo Duck Hunt and Big Buck Hunter paying off finally!) I maybe hit three or four targets, so obviously I'm not that comfortable yet. And apparently they all like Sarah a lot more than me, as she got the orange vest and I didn't. Its a lot of fun though, so thanks Uncles B & D for inviting us out. Nothing like shooting off some shotguns to feel like you're back in Maine..

So Thanksgiving was great, great catching up with everyone and seeing how much the little ones have grown up, but its great to be home again too. Next trip, Christmas which we don't have the specifics down for yet. Ok, off to Uncle's B & M's for dinner. Sorry for the long post, hope everyone enjoyed their Thanksgivings as much as we did.