Thanksgiving Weekend

Thanksgiving this year was yet again, awesome! I did forget to talk about one very important tradition in my previous post though: The Red Cups. Every year we all have red cups with our names on them for whatever we are drinking throughout the holiday. We would go through a million cups with 30 people and have to do even more loads of dishes if we didn't re-use these cups, so the red cups are key to Thanksgiving and a standing year after year tradition.

The red cups are always in the window above the sink, and this year our cousins Scott & Sarah who were in Hawaii over Thanksgiving sent us a pic of their red cups at the beach...they were with us in spirit!

Me with my cousin Holly (our cousin Whitney made us all shirts this year! We really took TG to the next level...it gets a little ridiculous)

Little brother Kevin and his girlfriend Kate

Brad and I

The cutest child ever (the first cousin baby) Baby Finley!

Our under $10 mystery wine tasting event Friday night at my aunt & uncle's house...my wine won against 18 other wines!

The whole crew sporting our Thanksgiving t-shirts!

TG '08

Traditions.

That is pretty much the only word that could sum up my family's Thanksgiving gathering year after year. My family is CRAZY about Thanksgiving, I will totally admit that. We do the same thing every year, but each year we get a little weirder and more intense about it. The emails used to start in early November. Nowadays, it's not uncommon to get one at the end of the summer. The subject line is always "TG (fill in the year)". We live for it each year.

To us, Thanksgiving is a 4 day weekend, where the 11 cousins on my mom's side of the family (ages 22-32) come from all over the country to meet up for a weekend of eating, laughing, reminiscing about old times and starting new "TG" traditions. Over time, we have extended the invite to boyfriends, girfriends, friends, roommates, etc. This year at the peak I believe there will be around 30 of us. To make it even more ridiculous, we all stay in one house. My aunt and uncle's house in Lake Oswego, OR. Luckily for us, that house is a giant compound (with a guest house) with plenty of room for all...but still very cozy.

I could probably go through Thanksgiving with a blindfold and tell you exactly what will happen. Wednesday night most will arrive. Papa Murphys pizza is served and every type of pop is available for your enjoyment. The night is filled with catching up and lounging around. Thursday morning, an "Uncle Bill Breakfast" is served, consisting of bacon and the best pancakes you will ever taste. He says the secret is using Jiffy pancake mix, but I think he is just a great cook. Thursday is filled with laying around, snacking, napping, watching football, going for walks, socializing...just a perfect relaxing day. "Cocktail hour" typically begins in the late afternoon, and this year we are serving up Pumpkin Spice Martinis. This was started by a group of 4 of us, lovingly referred to as "Party Crew". I am a member, but I am on the verge of revoking my membership, as I lack any drinking skills recently and need to step up my game. Next comes an amazing Thanksgiving meal, prepared by the aunties. We line up youngest to oldest (I'm 4th in line...well 5th, including Brad) and everyone has to be very careful not to drop the ladle in the gravy (someone ALWAYS does). After eating entirely too much, and most likely taking another nap...we all gather together to watch my favorite Friends Thanksgiving episode (The one where Rachel makes the trifle). And this year, we are going to watch all 560 photos in a slideshow of our trip to Italy in October! Ahhh, my lucky fam... ;) Early to bed in our tryptophan haze... Friday is spent winetasting...and we depart on Saturday.

Thanksgiving is such an important holiday to my family. I love being able to see them all and keep our family traditions alive, as well as making new ones. Counting the minutes until we leave....have a great holiday weekend!

Dear Jack,

Oh have I missed you. Thank you for coming back last night! I am counting the days until January when you return weekly. I think the world just got a lot safer.

XOXO,
Michelle

We're not the worst!

Yay!!! Another (unexpected) but amazing Apple Cup victory!!!

Spry, Coffey, Rothie, Court & Jamie

Double OT! Yikes, Brad and I are so nervous!!!

Cougs win it!!!

We can't stop screaming!

9th Place...we'll take it!

Brad throwing the "flag" & showing off his reffing skills...we're sending him to Referee School. He's good.

Seattle boat cruise...

I can't even attempt to explain why I was out on a boat, on a random Monday afternoon...so I won't! Enjoy the pics of a beautiful fall Seattle day!

Weekend

I would post pictures from the weekend, but I don't have any. And if I did, it would be a photo of me laying on the couch by myself, watching a movie. Most boring weekend EVER.

Michelle talking on the phone with Richie...

Dad: Well, I better get going. I just got to Staples.

Michelle: Oh, what do you need from Staples?

Dad: I gotta pick up one of those planners. I have way too much going on. I can't keep it all straight.

Michelle: (laughs) Really? So retired life is busy, huh?

Dad: Ok, talk you later. (click)

Maru's Blog

Ok, so remember the cat video I posted last week? As expected, that cat now has it's own blog. The cat is in Japan, and the owner has traslated the blog into English...but it's really funny English! My favorite video is "a cat to get wet". I love the dialoge between "Maru" and "person". I found this blog extremely entertaining, but then again, my days are pretty uneventful recently...

Maru's Blog

A perk?

I received this email at work today...


"I have a client that says that their house is haunted. They are considering selling and think that it is a perk. I would like any agents having dealt with this type of a thing before, to contact me. Thanks."


1) Has any other agent seriously dealt with this before!? and 2) Is this market so terribly bad that a haunted house is now a selling "perk"??? Yikes.

It's a Gala...a Regatta Gala

It was actually not a regatta gala, but I couldn't stop telling people it was. It just comes out of my mouth, preceding the word "Gala". Blame it on watching too many Friends episodes.

This weekend Brad and I headed down to Tacoma to attend a fundraiser for the Northwest Leadership Foundation. My cousin works for the foundation and invited us to join them for an evening of eating, drinking, dancing and gambling. It was a masquerade, called "Venetian Carnival". We didn't win the trip to Venice, but we did play blackjack ALL NIGHT LONG. I was quite a pro in the end!

Brad and I with our masks!

Michelle & Holly

Brad and I, along w/ cousins Jen, Elliot & Holly

Gwinn family puppy!

Just like the Obamas, it was time for my family to get a puppy too! My dad recently got our newest addition, Olivia, a Lahsa Apso puppy. I am dying to go home to Walla Walla for Christmas so I can meet her! As of last week she weighed just 3 pounds, sooo cute & tiny. Sigh.

Feeling...

INSPIRED.

Image via The Seattle Times

What a truly amazing experience last night, to witness such an important day in American history. So excited for the future...and so incredibly proud.

Are you kidding me!?

I just had to attempt to type that in as my word verification on Google. Who can honestly read that!? Is that really necessary?

Sad...

I just saw a posting for someone selling their Apple Cup tickets to the game in Pullman in a couple weeks. It said "Come watch the two worst teams in the history of football play eachother in Apple Cup 2008. It will probably suck really bad." Thank goodness UW is terrible too.

Poor Cougs :( We are currently ranked 113th out of 119 teams. Awesome.

Halloween

I tend to always travel right before halloween every year. I don't know why, it just always works out that way. Every year I seem to be running around like crazy right before Halloween night, racing around putting together a costume. This year we returned from our trip a little less than a week before, only to leave me struggling for my life to stay up past 9 pm (due to the 9 hour time difference). I decided not to attend a halloween party this year, in addition to my sleeping problem I also did not have a costume. Instead, I decided to pretend that Brad was a child and make a "scary" dinner for him! Although very cute, the dinner itself was kind of gross. We watched "101 scary movie moments" or something like that and I fell asleep around 9:30. Crazy night.

Spooky salad with Saliva dressing

Creepy Mummy Dogs

Dirt & Worms (this was actually incredible...lots of layers of ice cream & cookie crumbles!)