Beth in a Dress and Thanksgiving

Just before Thanksgiving, Beth "Lavender" Briggs returned to the wonderful state of Michigan to visit her family... and, of course, Jenny and myself. For one whole day, we frolicked around the Ann Arbor/Detroit area, visited really large home furnishing stores, and helped Beth try on oodles of wedding dresses. Little did I realize how much fun critiquing the minutia of weddings could actually be (especially the really hideous minutia)... Anyway, it was wonderful to see Beth (and Jenny) and to hang out and be a bit ridiculous for a day. (photos: Beth and Jenny outside The Great Indoors and by a giant slab of formica; with the shopping cart escalator; doing some wedding research while Beth gets dressed; Beth in a dress; and Jenny really excited about old and/or cheesey books from my grandmother's rejects.)







The days leading up to Thanksgiving were spent mostly working at my jobs and getting used to each of them before the big after Thanksgiving shopping days. Leslie was home for that whole week, which made the house full (for more than just a day) for the first time in almost two years. Wow! Thanksgiving was great, spent watching the morning parades, cooking, and more cooking. Dinner itself was at my grandparents' house with some of my extended family. We ate, drank (mulled cider.... mmm...), and played lots of euchre. Indeed, quite a bit better than my miserable Thanksgiving a year ago. The next day it was back to working the jobs... (photos: Mom, Gma, and Chach as the after dinner kitchen crew; Josh and Uncle Mike relaxing after all the eating; Aunt Margaret digesting her dinner; Dad, Joe, Ron, and Leslie scoffing at a post-dinner nap and opting instead for a trash-talking euchre game; Gma with her euchre "Game Face"; Gpa the turkey man; and the family chatting and such after dinner.)