Consider it Joy.: Our First Thanksgiving

So thanksgiving has come and gone, and I feel a little bad for anticipating Christmas so much that the only thought that kept running through my head regarding thanksgiving was ..."food." If you have been following my blog, you should know that danny and i spent our first thanksgiving alone (including murphy) in Austin in an extended hotel. This all came about when I won a Christmas photoshoot in October...and the photographer is based out of Austin. And though it was a little weird not being around our families...we ended up having a really great time!

Up until Thanksgiving evening, when we finally got to our hotel ,after a 4 hour drive, running over (and dragging) someone's muffler, forgetting both of our ipods; being stuck to scanning radio stations every 15 minutes, set out all our food that took over 24 hours to cook, decorated the room a bit and settled murphy down...we prayed, poured some wine and ate. In about 20 minutes. The moment I was done eating I was overwhelmed with guilt. Guilt for obsessing over making sure we had a full course thanksgiving day meal, that the dressing wasn't mushy in the middle, that the icing on the cupcakes would go on smoothly, that murphy was well...perfect, and that the sweet potatoes werent too sweet (which in fact they were.) Thankfully (pun not intended) I have the worlds best husband who sat patiently and compassionately as I confessed all these thoughts and then proceeded to give him my thanksgiving day "what im thankful for" speech! =) Its truly amazing how once one confesses, peace will automatically come into play.
Heres some pictures of the making of our thanksgiving day meal and once we were in the hotel!

Murphys new hair cut!

We ate on our thanksgiving day meal for about 5 meals. Everything turned out great, except like i said the sweet potatoes, they were like eating a spoonful of sugar each bite. Danny did awesome on the turkey thanks to the recipe out of my Southern Living Magazine...and his amazing turkey cooking skills. I feel like my first attempt on making my mom's (well her moms mom's) famous dressing was pretty successful! I thought it was pretty cute that both my mom and dannys mom reminded that "a little bit of sage can go a longgg way!" hehe!

We woke up Friday at 2:30 in the morning to be in line at Target by at least 3 for Black Friday shopping. We were there by 2:50am! All 3 of us went, Murphy did so good standing outside in the cold! The doors finally opened at 5 and we were in and out in less than 10 minutes. After Target we headed to best buy grabbed another specific "door buster" and was back at the hotel by 6 in the morning....just in time for the hotel's continental breakfast. I thought it was funny that the only people up for breakfast besides us...was another little old man drinking his coffee trying to figure out the waffle maker. too cute =)! Later that after noon, we went shopping again at the mall, then headed to UT Campus! There we grabbed some coffee and walked around the campus talking about our college years (as if they were so long ago. Heres a picture of exactly where we sat for a while!

then i had to throw in a picture of the UT stadium since they did play so well that week!

Friday night we ended up staying in our hotel, watching movies on cable! It was definitely a luxury for us to have cable tv, since we dont have cable in our apt! We were in awe of all the movies that were on!! =)

Saturday was our photo shoot... We had to leave the hotel by 2, So didn't do much that day either except worked out (open 24 hours), did laundry (yes free laundry service) and had to make a quick last minute trip to target for some outfit changes. The photo shoot was really fun and once again murphy did awesome! We took some pictures at a Christmas tree farm, an open field, a coffee bar and a laundry mat, so i'm pretty excited to see how they turned out!

After the photo shoot since we were dressed up we decided to go out to eat! We ended up eating at Chuys, fun yet relaxing atmosphere...and great food! =)