Day Before Thanksgiving Traditions

Have you ever started a tradition one year and by the next you treat it as if it's been in place for your whole life? Soon enough, you start saying "No, wait. We have to go to the same place for lunch...c'mon we do it EVERY year!" Well, case in point for me is our (Lineth, Sarah, Lily, Bex, and my) half day before Thanksgiving festivities. I don't know what it is about our semi newly created pre-Thanksgiving rituals, but it truly feels like a long standing tradition (and hopefully it will continue to be!)

Last year entailed...attempts to create "band photos" (or at least what our CD cover would look like if we had one!),

running up trees,
dashing across crosswalks,
individual portraits in front of white brick walls outside of our library,
candid laughing "you never know when she's gonna take it!" shots,

Salvation Army bell ringers,

confusion at non specific directions on restaurant signs,

witnessing the chaos that is the supermarket lines the day before Thanksgiving,

seeing the first Twilight, permanent eye damage from an unbelievably bright flash,

and getting the best seats in the movie theater. As our friend Ginger said when she saw us today in our (traditional!) middle middle middle five-seater "Aw, it's like it was made for you guys!" Which is a wonderfully nice (albeit a teensy bit vain....) thing to believe.

***

SO, good news: our adventures today lived up to every bit of the fabulousness from last year. I'm going to try and get the disposable cameras developed ASAP, and I can't wait to see the results. (Ah the simultaneous frustration/excitement of disposables!) But for now, we are (finally!) onto THANKSGIVING ITSELF! Sarah and her family are coming over along with my grandparents, my dad's best friend from his old town and her dog. Lil's mom very very sadly has pneumonia and will most likely not be able to come (which is quadruply disappointing as she has come every year since we first invited her,) but yet she STILL made us a sweet potato souffle. Can you say dedication? The good news though is that Lil's still going to drive herself over (that little licensed girl, can you believe it?) and spend the night. An evening of amazing food, intensely competitive board games, and plenty of laughter will surely ensue.

Well, I must rest before I get up bright and early to see our team's (last!) football game of the season. Have a wonderful holiday everyone!

P.S Oh my word. Just read this over, and whoops...in my last two paragraphs alone I used 7 parenthese-ridden interjections. (Um, forgive me?)