I hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving. We certainly did. We spent Thursday at Dan and Jane's house. Had a great traditional turkey lunch. And then headed to Mom and Dad's to visit in the evening.


Friday morning we got up bright and early (4 am) to hit the sales at Wal-Mart. Dan came out to sit with Madi. She was supposed to sleep and let him go back to sleep. But she heard us leaving and she was up at 4:30. Poor Dan had to stay up and entertain her all morning. Needless to say, she took an early nap Friday. We ended up getting the items we most wanted at Wal-Mart. That place was a zoo. We got there before the 5 am start time and there were people just hanging out by the pallet of stuff that they wanted. Chit chatting with the people around them and then 5 am hit and you couldn't hear anything, you couldn't walk down an isle, forget trying to get a cart anywhere with any kind of speed. We found our items and made it to the checkouts at 5:15, along with about 200 other people. INSANE!!! We went to several other stores and made it back home by 7:30 with a car full. It was a lot of fun. This was the first year that just Chris and I went and we had a lot of fun together. We don't get very many chances anymore to do something together.


It was very sad though to hear about the Wal-Mart employee in NY who lost his life being mowed over by anxious shoppers. I don't understand how people can be so narrow minded about something that they didn't even know they were stepping on someone. That doesn't make any sense. And his poor family that has to remember that day and that event as the death of their loved one, just awful.

Saturday, Jason and Tabatha came into town and everyone came out to our house for Thanksgiving. We had a nice lazy day with lots of food. The girls went shopping after lunch and later the guys went out to sight in their rifles for deer hunting this week. Madi had a blast playing with Uncle Jason. She didn't want them to leave. They came out again on Sunday to eat and hang out. The guys were going to do some more sighting, but the weather didn't cooperate. So we played games and snacked. It was a great weekend.

Madi and I are at the shop this morning. I'm supposed to be paying bills and getting paychecks ready...oops! Chris is trying to get things planned out for the week and get his work done today and tomorrow so they can leave for deer camp at Wilson Lake. He is hoping he can get out of town early tomorrow. They will be gone until Sunday. It's going to be a long week. Thursday, I am planning on frying up chicken and taking supper out to them. Probably leave after Madi's nap so she can run around and do some playing out there, if it's not too cold. And then Saturday, Madi and I are going to Beloit to get some pictures taken.

I started decorating the house for Christmas yesterday. I got the tree up and a few small decorations out. I have a pre-lit tree that I got two years ago and already some of the lights aren't working and I can't find the bulbs to replace them. I'm a little discouraged. I guess I'll just have to put a couple of strings of lights on it and call it good. It's going to take a little more time to decorate this year. I don't have as many places to sit things and I really wish we had a mantle. I don't know what I am going to do with the stockings. But I love Christmas time and decorations, so I'll get it figured out.

We hope everyone had a fun and safe Thanksgiving. There are so many things to be thankful for this year and looking forward to a great December and being able to spend time with family and starting off a new year with many more things to be thankful for.

Love, Amy