Thanksgiving.

Thanksgiving was interesting. Daniel and my mother and I all went down to Grand Junction and spent a week with Daniel's family. Thanksgiving dinner was quite impressive. His aunt "rented a hall" which basically ended up being a large structure with two rooms, one smaller one in the front with a fire and tables for all the food, and the one in back being quite large, with long tables for eating and a giant projector screen (think Frank's 2000" TV) hooked up to a Wii. There were various small children there who I'd never met who played DDR and Mario Kart and Wii Sports. Since there were so many people there, there was also an impressive array of dishes, ranging from turkey (two of them) and ham, to Granny T's Sweet Potatoes, to a crockpot full of mashed potatoes and a pitcher of gravy, to crackers and buffalo chicken dip, to red cabbage. And a separate dessert table.

Even more impressive was the fact that I didn't gain weight the day after.

The ride back was ok... the first part was fine, we stopped at Chili's and had lunch, and by the time we hit Vail the snow was starting to get thick. Just before we hit Eisenhower tunnel, my mother lost traction and tried pulling onto the snow to get it back, and we ended up getting stuck. A nice woman came over with a truck offering to pull us out, but there's apparently nothing on my car to hook onto. So Daniel and I ended up pushing the car and dashing back in once it was rolling again. The drive from that point on was pretty miserable, and we didn't get back to my mother's house until 8pm.

Other highlights of the trip: girl's day out, where Daniel, Ian, Clayton, and other assorted BOYS went to The Shop and played Warhammer, and the girls hung out, went shopping, ate out for lunch AND dinner, and then went to Twilight. It was entertaining enough but I don't know that I'd, say, recommend it.

Also enjoyable was the party on Friday, which benefited from a Magic draft, crockpots of chili and cheesy potatoes, and a sort-of-working pinball machine, and would have been even better if I hadn't gained a pound and a half from munching on chips and dip and brownies and cherry pizza all evening.