A time to be thankful and a time to freeze your buns off

 As a guest writer for my wife's blog I come to you faithful readers with humility, gratitude, meekness, appreciation and a keen sense of the monumental task at hand.  My lovely better half mentioned that she had selected a few pictures of the festivities over the last couple of days and that having a guest writer step in and commentate on the visual display would be a treat.  I'm all about treating the wife so I agreed.  Insert hisses and boos here.
This year we hosted Thanksgiving lunch for the first time ever.
To make the day more exciting our power went out at approximately 10 am and the guests were set to arrive at 12 noon.  We called everyone and postponed lunch until 1 o'clock to give the power company enough time to correct the situation and they came through.  We had power by 11:30ish and the festive mood returned.
Below you can witness the spread before we sat down to eat just enough so that we wouldn't walk away hungry.

 Here's my Mom enjoying a lovely beverage...

 There wasn't enough room at the main table so the kiddos had their own feast at the other end of the kitchen.

 My younger brother knows how to fill a plate and here he is showing off his food placement skills.

 There was plenty of frivolity and laughter at our table between bites of turkey, potatoes, gravy, baked corn, stuffing, french green beans, and of course the pies and pumpkin rolls.  In this picture I'm sure we are calling my older brother out on some indiscretions of his youth.

 

Here the new (week old) twins make their appearance.  My wife is a real sucker for babies as you can clearly see by the longing look in her eyes.

Brooke is the oldest cousin and little Suzy loves her attention.

Here's Ma and Pa G with all 10 of the grandkids.

More baby adoration...

Jack and Cale enjoying some marble action...

All in all it was a great day with time spent with those that we love making memories and traditions to enjoy for years to come.  We are extremely thankful for our family and extended family and hope that you had a joyous Thanksgiving Day with much to celebrate as well.

The next day didn't start out so leisurely as the wife and I got up at the crack of the crack of dawn as you can see in the official time picture below.  That's correct, the clock said 1:47 on the way to the 2 hour waiting line.

There were some hard-to-pass-up deals to be had so we headed out to join the masses in weather that was less than stellar.  Here you can see me braving the 5 degree wind chill factor in pursuit of some decent bargains at the local retailer.  I will mention that the kiddos stayed firmly in bed while the pretty one and myself ventured out in the frozen tundra.  Usually I draw the short straw and get to go it alone but this year the green-eyed one decided that going along sounded like fun.  Isabella is 10 and enjoys the responsibility of "baby-sitting" for short spells of time on occasion so we took the opportunity.
I'll just say that the lines were long, the weather was uncooperative, the frostbite nearly turned me into a quitter but the deals that we came home with warmed the heart.

Some other mind-numbed shoppers with similar intentions. 

We returned home with time enough to crawl back into bed for 2 more hours before the rest of the house woke up and started the day.  Thank you all for reading.  May your toes never be frostbitten and may your leftover turkey be gone within a week.