We had Thanksgiving at the Hemphill house this year and it was great to have Brandon free to come too. He's had to work most Thanksgivings so I'm usually solo with the kids, but not this year! He had to work later on Wednesday than planned so we left early Thursday morning and headed up to Montgomery.

A crazy thing happened on the way up there. Brandon called his best friend, Burt to wish him a happy Thanksgiving and to find out what they were doing. He said they were on the road down to Mobile to spend it with family and they were on I-65. We were too and looked over to the left and passed them! Seriously, how does that happen?!?!

We finally make it to Mimi and Papa John's and Brandon's sister, Ame and her family were already there and the kids couldn't wait to play together. It was incredibly warm that day and Christopher kept asking if we could bring the pool out to play. I refused even though it was probably hot enough!

 Mimi found a really cute craft for the kids to make and so we set up shop on the patio and made the cutest turkeys out of pine cones and pipe cleaners.


Camille showing off her cute turkey. Ame and I were laughing when the kids finished because her girls did beautifully colored ones while Christopher made an orange one and Sophie's was pink. Not very outside the box, I know, but what can you do?



Ame fixed Sophie's hair with left over pipe cleaners. Sophie LOVED it!!! The kids spent the rest of the afternoon coming up with different things they could make with them. It was really funny!



Sophie and a baby doll she found at the house. She named this one Papa Baby. We loved that because the baby was wearing all pink.


Sophie later came into the kitchen with all the sunglasses she could find in the toy box. She thought she was as funny as we did!


And here are the final turkeys. Aren't they cute!! I think we'll have to make these again in the future.

On Friday, Lisa, Ame and I woke up really early to go do some shopping. But from what I heard, it wasn't nearly as early as the rest of you did! We had a lot of fun and I actually got most of my shopping done. It wasn't my intention, but then I just figured, if I can get it now, why not? It will save me the trouble for later. We hit up Target first and saw the line wrapping around the inside of the store. By the time we were ready to check out the line was practically gone. I think I enjoy Black Friday b/c I can go shop without the kids and know that they are sleeping with Brandon and he's not having to watch them at their worst part of the day. Besides, they got to go to Waffle House with Papa John and Nana, so they have fun too!

That afternoon, Brandon and I were able to go out for a bit alone and it was REALLY nice!!! We hardly ever get to go on dates and lately our dates have been some event or thing that we have to get done so we haven't had time to just have fun together in a really, really long time. (Thanks John and Lisa for letting us go!!)

Saturday morning we were up and ready for our race. Lisa found a 5K that we could run to help the youth group at their church and we figured why not? Only problem, it was FREEZING!!!!!! I'm used to flat and warm Florida and though we were only 3 1/2 hours north the course just had to have some small hills and the temperature had to be 34 degrees. But we did it and had fun and we each won a medal!! Brandon and I got second for our age division and Lisa got third. (I'm still proud even if we won because there was nobody else in our age group or they won the whole thing.)

We went home to shower and Christopher and I went to visit my Grandmother for a little while and then met the gang at the Bass Pro Shop in Prattville. It was HUGE! And I couldn't help but laugh when I was walking in because I knew I was back in Alabama when I saw Coach purses and Wrangler jeans in the same place. Gotta love it!!! We had to drag Papa John out of there (it's a man's heaven) and then went out for Mexican food and home for bed.

Sunday we went out to lunch and then hit the road when the craziest thing happened again! We were about 1/3 of the way home when we decided to stop for a bathroom break. I pull into a gas station (thankfully a nice big one with a fast food restaurant and that means clean bathrooms), find a parking spot, look over at the car next to me and think, "That car is from Montgomery. And that diaper bag in the back looks really familiar." I get Brandon's attention and tell him I think it's Burt's wife, Melissa. He calls Burt and I'm convinced by now. Who else could it be? We knew she was on the road today with her mom and the baby. I go inside and get in the bathroom line and sure enough, there she is! Seriously, HOW DOES THAT HAPPEN???? All we could do was laugh!

So, everyone, that was our Thanksgiving. It was great and fun and filled with family and friends.