Thanksgiving!

The Gruwell's Thanksgiving 2007

Thanksgiving at the Gruwell/Hodgen/Pitcher has was a full week affair. Melanie, Zach and Aubrey drove down from Pittsburgh (along with Lulu the dog - as featured in previous posts). Lindsey flew in from BYUI...and the rest of us went downstairs! Thanks to everyone pitching in we had dinner around 1pm . Shannon happily downed some juice, ate a roll with butter, then declared that she was tired and going to bed (no complaints from anyone). You might remember that Shannon is on a "no sweets until you get your poo poos in the potty" diet. Well, the diet allows an exception for the holidays and when she woke up she ate pie the rest of the night. After everyone else napped and ate pie, the Christmas music came on, all the fire places went ablaze and the Christmas tree went up. With hot chocolate in hand, the family watched Elf and Thanksgiving 2007 was declared a success.

Shannon and Aubrey Keeping themselves occupied

Now, ever year I vow to not be apart of the after-Thanksgiving Day sale madness, and yet, when the paper comes Thanksgiving day and I see the amazing deals, a little light inside starts to burn. Apparently all the Gruwell daughters were feeling the same way, so we set our alarms for 3:15 am. Of course the little light inside wasn't as bright when we woke up, got dressed, and into the freezing car. As we neared Kohl's there was bumper to bumper traffic. As we parked in a nearby Japanese restraunt Melanie and I both looked up at the same time and saw the sea of bodies lined up past Goodys, past Target, and into the darkness, we almost gave up then. But we knew we'd be laughed at if we came home empty handed. So we found the back of the line, waddled our way into Kohls and soon discovered that holiday shopping can only be done in 3's. One to get a spot in the check-out line (which wound around the entire store) one to shop, and one to park the car (if going to multi stores). Oh, and a cellphone per person is a must. Anyways, once we got everything, Mel stood in line while Lindsey and I went to a different store. Lindsey and I both got everything we needed at Belk and still made it back before Melanie was at the check-out (kind enough to be willing to buy our stuff too). You know how they put little odds and ends at the check-out line of stores, hoping that while you are waiting you'll grab a few? Well, the entire store had been that way for Melanie and she had acquired 10 more items since we'd left her. We kept our sense of humor the entire time and finished the madness at 7 am. When Mel's husband saw our loot he got a little jealous and ventured out with Steve that afternoon and came home with a few items himself. Of course he'd missed out on the true after-Thanksgiving sale experience, but I don't think he was too sad about it!