Thanksgiving in the Woods

That's where I've been the last few days. In the woods, roughing it (if you call heat and AC and one television channel roughing it) in a cabin with my immediate family and my aunt/uncle/ cousins.

Our digs.

We were visiting my brother and his (new!) fiance Jen, who live and work at a camp/environmental center, which is pretty much vacant for the holidays. Last year, they reserved the cabin for our fam and this year Thanksgiving in the woods became a reality.

Thanksgiving morning started with a bang.

That's my cousin Dustin on the top of a semi-telephone pole preparing to jump onto a trapeze that you can't really see in the picture. Don't worry, he was harnessed to Jen and what appears to be the rest of the pole (it wasn't as tall as a real telephone pole of course).

When it was my turn, it started raining and I spent a good three minutes yelling, "I can't do it!" at the top of the pole while my family stood under a tarp and yelled "Yes you can!" So I did, and immediately slipped off the trapeze because it was wet. I don't think my legs have ever shaken that much, but I did it! It looked so easy when it wasn't me on top of that pole.

Terror stance.

 

After pole trapeze (I have no idea what it's really called) it was time to eat! The cabin set a nice backdrop for our meal.

We had three kinds of cranberry sauce/chutney, turkey and gravy, salad, green bean casserole, sweet potato casserole, Brussels sprouts, mashed potatoes, apple stuffing, regular stuffing--the works! So, so good. The rest of the weekend was spent hiking, posing for pictures, watching movies (Cold Mountain, anyone?), playing Apples to Apples and Yahtzee and trying our hands on the climbing wall.

Sister & Brother

The three of us

Our cabin in the background.

Fork in the road.

Miss Marple, the cat that hung out in our cabin all weekend.

My brother the mountain man

Ready for a hike

The crew

My brother also handles owls, so he gave us a demonstration.

Before we headed home Saturday, a group of us climbed the climbing wall.

Three of us got to the top (not me!)

 Since we were in the woods there was no Black Friday shopping for us (probably wouldn't have been anyway) but today we drove up to Memphis to return some lingering wedding gifts to Macy's and use our Bed Bath & Beyond gift card. This of course meant lunch with the Fashionable Wife Nikki and her hubs, who brought us a gift for Sawyer! It was lots of fun but we didn't take a picture and thus are bad bloggers. After some ordeals at Macy's (one store didn't understand that when we return we get the price back that the gift-giver paid, not the super-low price the item is listed at now so we drove across town to another) we ended up with quite the loot! At BB&B we picked up an awesome trashcan, a rolling pin and a measuring cup. The trash can was much needed! We spend so much time picking up ours and putting it on the table or counter so Sawyer can't get into it, so now we have a nice new one with a lid. At Macy's we got a nice set of pots and pans, a cast iron skillet, another set of Pyrex bowls with lids (we love them!) and some kind of herb saver item. I'll let you know if it works!

I hope you all had a lovely Thanksgiving and long weekend! I certainly did, but I am glad to get back to the Labrahound (he stayed with groomsman Bob) and a bit of privacy! Seventeen people in a cabin goes a long way.