Thanksgiving

I thought that I had better post about Thanksgiving before Christmas is here! We drove up to New Hampshire the Saturday before Thanksgiving. It was a 12 hour drive, but it went by surprisingly fast. I guess when you drive through 8 states (Virginia, Maryland, Delaware, New Jersey, New York, Connecticut, Massachusetts, and New Hampshire) it feels like you are making great progress. We stopped in New Jersey and ate some really good hoagies at a little deli. Then we also stopped in Boston to visit my high school friends, Jena and Jaclyn, and meet Greg, Jena's boyfriend, for the first time. I had lots of fun visiting with Jena and Jaclyn who I hadn't seen in a while. We got into New Hampshire late that night and visited for a little then went to bed. Here is a quick recap of everything we did:

Sunday - We went to church
Monday - We went grocery shopping with Mom

I'm working away at the puzzle, while....
Matt and Nugget take a nap

Tuesday - We went to Matt's high school and looked around (it is no longer the local high school), we then went and looked at their family grave stone. It was a little odd to see my husband's name on a grave stone. Matt and I then drove to the beach and looked at all the big houses and decided which ones we liked and didn't like.

Matt's High School

Wednesday - We drove to Maine to go to the Kittery Trading Post. It is a big outdoorsy store. It was a lot of fun to look around.

Thursday - I was in charge of the mashed potatoes and pumpkin pie. I made both the morning of Thanksgiving, which wasn't the best idea I ever had. Both of them turned out delicious. I used my Aunt Deanna's recipe for mashed potatoes and they were so yummy. I then made my first pie ever and it turned out perfect! We had a delicious dinner and had fun visiting. That night we went to see Twilight. I didn't love it... all I could do was point out things that weren't consistent with the book (I had very recently read it).

Sitting down to dinner (minus Ellen, she's taking the picture)

Here is my pie half eaten
Dad helps in cleaning up dinner

Ellen and Mom also help in cleaning up

Friday - We went candle pin bowling... which is not a talent of mine. Matt and David did well. Matt and I also went to a local restaurant (The Loaf n Laddle) for lunch.

Matt showing off his great candle pin bowling skills

Saturday - We had to drive back home. The drive home did not pass as quickly. Getting off of the New Jersey turnpike was a nightmare. Drivers were being incredibly rude and I was getting really angry at them. There are lanes for cash only and then many lanes for ez pass, however, it seems that very few people actually have an ez pass. So people were going in the lane for the ez pass and then trying to cram their way into our cash only lane, where we had waited patiently to get near the front. These cars were incredibly crazy and several came within centimeters of our car! Luckily my sweet husband remained calm and relaxed through the whole thing while I was staring down the other drivers (who refused to look at us). We ended up making it home safely. We got all of our stuff unpacked right before the rain hit.

This sign says "Reduce Speed Congestion Ahead"

We did lots of puzzles and read lots also! I finished the 2nd, 3rd, and almost all of the 4th book of the Twilight series (I wasn't impressed by any of them) and Matt read The Hobbit. It was a fun vacation and now we're looking forward to California for Christmas!