Thanksgiving 2017- Room for One More

I intended to post this sooner, but it's been a little busy around here.  Nonetheless I wanted to document our holiday.  Initially our Thanksgiving day plans were to take lunch to my Mom's which consisted of a tweaked version of Presbyterian chicken, roasted Brussels Sprouts, homemade cranberry sauce and apple crisp.  At home for dinner the 3 of us we were going to have a turkey breast and the sides already mentioned, and the inclusion of a pecan pie.  Andrew asked a week or so before Thanksgiving if we had room for one more for Thanksgiving dinner.  Of course we did!  When the boys were little they had lots of sleepovers and play dates and that continued through college.  It was not unusual for us to have 2 sometimes 3 extra people at a meal and we always managed to feed everyone.  Andrew met a girl [yes I know A GIRL] at the dog park over the summer.  Carrie is from Ohio, and because of her work schedule would not be able to go home for Thanksgiving.  I thought is was very kind of Andrew to want to include her in our Thanksgiving plans as unfancy as they were.  However, that did mean that we needed an actual turkey, and because of our whirlwind trip to Maryland/DC we had to buy the turkey on the way home so that it would be thawed in time for Andrew to brine.  Andrew ended up doing most of the cooking and of course it was delicious.  He did the turkey, gravy, green beans, pecan pie and sweet potatoes.  My contribution was the Brussels Sprouts, mashed potatoes, wine and clean up.

I tried to get better photos of our guest and food, but with the time change and limited light in our apartment this is the best I could do.  Carrie was a lovely addition to our table, she likes sports, food, and dogs.  She was even willing to take home some leftovers!

Friday morning I did what one should be doing after a "big" meal.  I had the fitness center to myself and went the distance on the elliptical.  Saturday morning I opted for the treadmill, and again had the fitness center to myself. 

Friday afternoon featured a real Smackdown, as friends included us in their annual Black Friday pub crawl.  This year was wresting themed, and boy did we have fun.  We were all assigned a wrestler to channel and I was Andre the Giant, and if you know anything about him and me we are complete opposites-I'm sure that was intentional.  There was sumo wresting or rock 'em sock 'em robots.  A drinking game and an interview with Roddy Piper in Piper's pit.  I love getting together with Kay and Steve because they are so much fun to be around.  Their bungalow is in a development in Roswell where my Dad's high school used to be and right behind me-literally less than 50 yards are the apartments I grew up in, but have not been changed to a multi-housing/use development.

This is Steve getting suited up for Sumo wresting-it is not an easy task getting into, and out of this contraption.

Our pub crawl began with a walk towards the Canton St area in what I call Old Roswell.  There is  new brewery called Variant, and I thoroughly enjoyed it.  I hope to have a chance to come here again to try a few more beers.  There was another game of matching wrestler pictures with their names.  I got 14 of the 16, and had I been really paying attention I would have got them all right.  Not sure what that says about me, but there you go!  We continued on for dinner at Swallow at the Hollow for BBQ-so good!

Finally our last stop was for a nightcap at Lucky's.  My beer choice seemed appropriate with me being southern and Thanksgiving typically includes pecan pie!  We headed back to Kay and Steve's via the cemetery, and I said hello to my peeps-cause I'm weird like that. .

Saturday morning included tailgating and the annual GT v UGA game.  Since the game was at GT this year and we had GT season tickets we went.  As Forrest Gump would say- "that's all I have to say about that"!  At least we got to hang out with our friends Steve and Julie.

Sunday included a bike ride and then we met up with the family for lunch at another spot in Roswell Mac McGee's to have lunch together before Andrew headed north [4:45 am on Monday!].  Mary posted a photo here.  I love coming to this area of Roswell since I spent a lot of time here as a kids as did generations of my dad's family before me.  Once home we got Andrew packed and ready to head out first thing Monday morning.  You can probably guess it took me a couple days to recover from all this activity, but I have some lovely memories and that's what really matters.