Thanksgiving 2007

 

We spent our Thanksgiving in St. Pete Beach, at Mom and Dad’s. Their house looks incredible. They have worked so hard, turning a dumpy place into something worthy of the pages of Better Homes and Gardens. I kid you not. When I arrived back home this afternoon, I could see with fresh eyes how abysmal my own place is in comparison to their spotlessly clean, super-mega-organized, beautifully decorated house. It made me feel depressed, yet inspired.

But I digress!

What fun we had! It was actually a bit cool out, but Mom and Dad had graciously begun heating their pool a couple of days in advance of our visit, so that we could all go swimming. For once, I didn’t get sea sick just hanging out in the pool!

The boys got to play with their cousins, Sydney and Salvador. Syd and Sal spent the night at Mom and Dad’s all three nights we were there, so it was like one huge long slumber party for the kids. They played, swam, watched cartoons, ate popcorn, and even fought a bit—that was near the end and how we knew it was about time for our visit to end.

I did a bit of light reading—Woman’s Day, Good Housekeeping—and helped Mom with food preparation. We had a huge crowd for Thanksgiving dinner, but there was plenty of turkey with all the trimmings, and loads and loads of PIE.

On Friday, Brian and the boys and Dad went across the street to the neighbor’s house to pick grapefruit. Ellen has become a dear friend to my parents, and she considers them to be like family. She was over for Thanksgiving, too. She has a small-ish grapefruit tree in her driveway that gets tons of grapefruits every autumn; but she’s on cholesterol medication and can’t eat any of it! So she gives it away, mostly to Dad. We brought home three plastic grocery sacks stuffed full.

Thankfully, the Internet is a lovely source of grapefruit recipes. So, while I attempt to shed pounds on the infamous Grapefruit Diet, I can simultaneously gain weight while sampling such wonders as grapefruit pie, grapefruit tart, and grapefruit cake!

Mom and I got to sneak out a bit during the grapefruit picking episode to do a bit of shopping. We went to Walgreens, which is usually fun but for some reason on Friday was totally boring. Then we hit Dollar Tree, where we found all kinds of cool stuff. I didn’t buy all the things I was tempted to, but I did find a couple of really pretty votive candle holders that I knew would cost three times as much at Target (or even Wal-Mart). And Mom got a VHS copy of SHAG: The Movie for a buck. So that was fun.

The trip home was uneventful, except for Charlie vomiting in the car. For some reason, he always gets sick either going to or coming from St. Pete. On the way down, I’d remembered to give him a Bonine (travel sickness prevention pill), but this morning I forgot, and he wound up sick. Poor fellow. So we spent a good 20 minutes on the side of the road cleaning up that mess.

But all’s well that end’s well. I’d say we had a very satisfying holiday!