Thanksgiving!

The Thomberg's had a FABULOUS Thanksgiving weekend.

Thursday we headed to Kelly's in the early afternoon for the traditional Thanksgiving meal with all the trimmings. After we gorged ourselves, we  played the Wii with Kenix. (or whatever you call that thing that makes you an Avatar on the screen). We all had a blast.

Friday Mark headed to work to Ra Ra his 'Bou locations for Black Friday.

I did not shop, which is typical. (It is now a week AFTER Thanksgiving, and I suppose I should fire it up next week.) I did go on line to get Marly and pair of snow pants from Land's End.

I intended to spent the entire day in my grey Target PJ pants with little neon safari animals on them. My plan was to bake oatmeal cookies with the kids in the afternoon. Believe it or not, I have NEVER made homemade cookies. (Okay... once I tried to make oatmeal cookies with steel cut oats, to be more healthy. This was an EPIC fail).

When Mark returned home at lunch, we decided to head north to get the Christmas tree. I was forced out of my PJ pants and into corduroys, a cozy scarf, and shearling Costco boots (with NO SOCKS).

 We went to Pinestead in Isanti for the third year in a row.

Don't let the smiling faces in the photos fool you. The Twinners could NOT agree to a tree. There were frozen tears and hissy fits. We opted NOT to cut our own this year, because Dean found a beautiful tree in the lot. I got to pick the type, and choose a white pine with long needles.

Back at home, both kids declared it the BEST TREE EVER.

We actually had to cut it down just a little because it was too big.

While Mark and the kids commandeered our mighty pine, I whipped up the oatmeal cookies. We completed the evening with  turkey (from the crock pot), mashed potatoes, gravy, cranberry sauce, and a mediocre stuffing. That's right, I prepared a mini Thanksgiving dinner since we didn't host and had no left overs.

Saturday was a PJ pants repeat of Friday, with more decorating. I should note in the last two weeks Mark completely repainted all of the upper level common areas of our home a fresh and perfect grey (perfect 6 test pots later). We LOVE it. We have been talking about the update since spring. Mark was under the gun, since we are a host site for our annual Neighborhood Progressive Happy Hour - TONIGHT!

At 3:15 pm on Saturday, I promptly gussied myself up after calling my Dad and discovering the Annual Post Thanksgiving Pizza Party kicked off at 4:30 and not 5 or 6 like I slated in my head.

**The Annual Pizza Party will have to be reviewed in another post at a later date, when I upload the photos off of the camera card**

We finished off the long weekend with an outing to the Shrine Circus at the Target Center on Sunday afternoon.

Mark and I both remember going to the circus when we were kids. We both think we were about 5 years old at the time. I think when I went, it was somewhere in St. Paul (Roy Wilkens perhaps), and we were with my cousin Brad, Barb and Charlie.

Neither Mark and I remember attending again when are siblings would have been old enough. We now totally understand why this is! We suspect the circus is a ONE TIME ONLY gig for the parental unit! (Notice Dean's crab apple face. He is P-Oed we will NOT buy him a lighted wand, or saber, or fiber optic toy!)