Thanksgiving...success or failure?

This was our very first Thanksgiving in our new home and it was shaping up to be a very good day.  When you get family together you truly never know one way or another who is going to come to Thanksgiving and be a little sensitive or a little harsh for that matter.

I am proud to announce that this year was a screaming success! 

It's just amazing what a difference a large house makes for accomodating everyones needs.  Prior to moving to our new house, we owned an 1100 sq ft. house.  Now we loved our house, don't get me wrong.  But we were too big for it when we moved in to it, knowing that we were going to be able to add on to it within a couple of months after living there.  Then as you all know and are feeling the effects...the Real Estate market did what it did and the option to add on to the house no longer existed.

Our new house is 2500 sq ft. and is so much fun.  I was able to prepare the Turkey and all the goods and not even have a mess in my kitchen (so it seemed cuz the kitchen is so big)!  When you have a fun, gourmet kitchen, I have learned that you look forward to going in and preparing meals, snacks, etc.  (Considering my last kitchen had one drawer and one cupboard and we were there for 5 years.)  Can I get a what what?

All the family had such a great time...the turkey was PERFECT!  Thank you God...you just never know with those big birds. 

We ate, then we enjoyed a game of basketball...as our new house also came equipped with a basketball court.  After playing family against family...Thompson's against Yochheim's...we were proud to announce that the HOME team came out on top...1 for the Thompson's!  Yay!

A little game of Wii fishing was hilarious...an then we broke out my favorite game in the whole world, which you are not even able to buy and haven't been able to for many, many years...Mad Chatter.  It's just like a home version of the $25,000 Pyramid...and oh it is so much fun!  You can actually play up to 10 players and it is friggin hilarious.  All the family plays regardless of age and that makes for an even funnier evening with all the different generations.  What a blast!

You know there was a time when my husband and I would play games with me at home so that when we play other couples or members of the family...we dominate. (I'm not competitive at all yeah right)  Well it was obvious that we hadn't practiced, but I did give him the benefit of the doubt and took in to consideration that it was Thanksgiving and not a time to be upset at my husband's game performance.  LOL 

After all was said and done we did decide to go ahead and start up Saturday night family game night...can't wait!  :)

All ended well...we stuffed ourselves to the brim and now today are looking forward to the "holiday sandwiches" that I got off of someone's blog last week. 

Today we are putting up the Christmas decorations...let the holidays begin!

Hope you had a Thanksgiving to remember also!

Bitter Sweet...

The last couple of days have been interesting slightly crazy to say the least.

My home phone and cell phone ring at the same time on Wednesday night...one call I picked up, the other my husband got.  My call was a really good friend of ours from high school, a guy who was in our wedding and has been my husband's best friend their whole lives, he called to tell us that his mom had committed suicide....everything in me dropped! 

On my husbands phone, the call was my husband's little brother calling to let us know that he and his fiance were expecting a baby (which would be the first kids on my husbands side of the family other than our twins) and that they were wanting to get married at our house on Saturday night. 

Talk about mixed emotions! 

With us moving in to our new house 3 weeks ago, we had already planned on having a "stock the bar" party in our new house on Saturday night.  The house that we just bought has a full bar and we are not big drinkers, so what better way to stock the bar than with a "stock the bar party".  We got the UFC fights and invited everyone to come over and bring a bottle of their favorite alcohol.  This was the night that Adam's (my husband) little brother (Mikey) wanted to get married.

Here's when things get crazy...so Adam goes online to become ordained to marry his little brother and his fiance.  This was a very rigorous actually the easiest process you could have to go through.  It actually took him about 7 minutes on the internet to be "ordained" as a Reverend to marry Mikey.  We were cracking up.  All that huh?

Then we were off to the funeral on Friday for our friends mom.  What a very sad ceremony...then following that there was a celebration of life.  You can imagine what a high school reunion this was.  So we took it upon ourselves to invite everyone there to our "stock the bar" party the next night.  I mean, why not.  Many of them came from out of state and it was going to be a long time until we saw them again. 

So Saturday comes and by this time we have since learned that Adam cannot actually marry his little brother and fiance until the following week because he has to be granted a one day pass by the County Clerk and they were closed on Friday.

Our friends start arriving for the "stock the bar" party...it was so much fun!  Everyone brought a bottle of alcohol and that totally stocked us up...for life pretty much considering that we are not big drinkers at all! 

Our friends were here from Southern CA, New Mexico, Nevada, Northern CA, as well as many from our local area. 

Things got very interesting...our friend Tim whose mom just passed away, learned yesterday that his girlfriend of less than 2 months was pregnant with twins.   Mind you, Tim's divorce is not even final yet.  The ex-girlfriend of Tim was at our house and was having an emotional breakdown because she has never really gotten over him and on and on and on. 

Adam and I are not big "party" people.  This seemed like a very logical way to stock the bar and was indeed a great time and so much fun to see our childhood friends, but in hindsight, we would like to go to other peoples houses for get-togethers because we always have a way of leaving before the drama.  I loved seeing everyone and was super excited to be able to dance and hang out...and I will keep you posted on the wedding of my brother-n-law.

Happy Sunday!