Thanksgiving Time

We had a wonderful Thanksgiving weekend! It was just what the doctor ordered. *wink* We left Omaha Wednesday afternoon and drove straight through to Austin. Cooper wasn't too excited about us leaving and I think he was trying to tell me that he wanted to come with.

Even after I kept moving him off my bag so I could pack it with all my stuff, he was fairly persistent about wanting to come with us...

We got to Ryan's parent's house around 7:00ish. I was so tired. His parents got home around 8 and I had a heck of a time staying awake until then. After we said our hellos, I promptly fell asleep on the couch only to have Ryan wake me up and make me go sleep in the guest room {with the heated blanket on the bed!}. Ryan and his parents stayed up until 2 or 3 in the morning! They are such night owls!

I got up bright and early Thanksgiving day. Everyone was still sleeping so I was able to veg out and watch tv. We didn't do much besides eat a big 'ol turkey and watch lots of football. It was nice to not have anything on the agenda. After we ate our big turkey dinner, Renee and I made sugar cookies while Ryan caught some post-dinner Zzz's.

I don't know what we were thinking but we made a ton of sugar cookies. {I guess I should take the blame because I was the one mixing up all the dough.} Renee and I actually bake pretty well together. I was rolling the dough and cutting out the cookies, she was in charge of putting them in the oven, setting the timer and putting them on the cooling rake. Since the cookies only took 7 or so minutes to bake, we put out a lot of cookies in a relatively short amount of time. We came to the conclusion that it is better to back sugar cookies with someone else than by yourself. We had a pretty good system down and baked all of the cookies in less than two hours.

Renee manning the oven.

See those little stars that are a little crispy? Those were the only slightly overdone cookies of the whole night. We told Steve we made those specially for him as he likes crispy cookies :)

Our almost-finished product. {I guess I didn't do the best job hiding the over-baked ones.}

Black Friday is up next. Renee and I decided to join the craziness on Friday morning and do some shopping. Main Street in Austin is a pharmacy but they have the best little gift shop. There Black Friday deal consists of giving you a big holiday gift bag and everything you fit inside is 50% off. They opened at 8 am so Renee and I headed into town around 8:30. Main Street was busy but it wasn't too terrible {not like the craziness of department stores like Target}. I picked up a Christmas tree topper, a couple of puzzles for my family's Christmas get together, a Christmas ornament and a big coat rack for the house here in Omaha. Everything, 50% off!! After Main Street, Renee and I went to Yonkers. Their door buster sale went until 1pm. The nice thing about shopping in Austin as compared to Mankato or even Rochester is that it isn't super crazy so the parking wasn't bad at all. At Yonkers, I got new pillows for our bed and a few other miscellaneous items and I didn't pay over 50% for any of it! After Yonkers, it was time for some pampering. We went for pedicures and manicures. I love getting pedicures although I've only probably done them three times in my entire life. I love soaking my feet in the nice warm water and the leg massage. After the pampering, we stopped at Target so a few things and then were on our way home. All in all, it was a successful Black Friday shopping experience.

Once we got back to the house, Renee and I had all of those sugar cookies waiting for us to decorate them. So we got to it. Agh! Why did we make so many cookies?! Towards the end of decorating all the cookies, I was ready to not decorate another single cookie for a LONG time. Again, Renee and I agreed that we made a pretty good sugar-cookie team as if we were decorating by ourselves, we would have been miserable by the end. Decorating with someone else makes that process a lot less painful especially when you are decorating what seemed like thousands of cookies.

Our finished product!

Look at all these cookies!

Good thing cookies freeze and last for a while. I took a bunch of cookies for Ryan and I in Omaha and then also for my parents. We packed up some for Ryan's grandma and the rest will be frozen for a while. I don't think we will make so many next year :)

Saturday was another busy day for Ryan and I. First we stopped by the house in Owatonna to pick up a few things and then we drove to the cities. Kelsey and I had a shopping date planned and Ryan was going to spend the day hanging out with AJ. Kelsey is in Family Medicine residency in the cities so we stopped by to see her new apartment and also her cat Amelia who is so incredibly patient and let us dress her up in all of her new holiday outfits.

Oh Amelia, you are so cute.

Amelia is ready for the holidays!

Kelsey and I had a great day hanging out. I miss being in Minnesota and hanging out with people :( Residency is a whole new ballgame. *sigh* It's only four years I guess. I will eventually be back in Minnesota. Kelsey and I did a lot of shopping. It was so much fun and reminded me a lot of our 4th year of medical school when we lived together and went shopping. We went all over and I bought a lot of things. I don't like shopping in Omaha - they have sales tax on everything including clothes, so I was making my shopping experience in Minnesota count.

After we finished shopping, Ryan picked me up and we started our journey south to Ryan's grandma's house in Luverne. We made a pit stop to see my parents. We weren't at my parent's place for too long but it was so nice to stop in and see them. I miss being in Minnesota :( We got into Luverne late Saturday night around 11:30pm. We checked into our hotel room and I fell asleep within 15 minutes :) Sunday morning we woke up, ate a little breakfast and then went to Ryan's grandma's house for a visit. It was nice to see Ryan's grandma - we don't make it over there often enough!

By late morning, Ryan and I were back on the road driving to Omaha. Ryan got tickets to the UNO Mavericks hockey game Sunday afternoon. So we drove straight from Luverne to the arena. UNO was playing St. Cloud. It was a good game and ended up a tie after going to overtime. After to game, I drove straight to work and worked the Sunday night shift during which I delivered three babies! {Back to reality}

All in all, Thanksgiving break so just what I needed. Some time off to hang out with friends and family and regain some of my sanity. It was also nice to have more than a day and a half off from work! It was nice to come home from work and have the cats excited to see me. They were quite the little snugglers - they missed us.

~Ashley