Gobble Gobble Gobble

Welcome to our Thanksgiving extravaganza: A smorgasbord of food and pictures from our big weekend. Erin's mom and grandparents made the journey from central Illinois to spend a few days with us, so now, we've seen most of our family from the Heart of Illinois. Let's meet the stars of adventure. Here we have Erin's Mom, Grandma, and Blinky McBlink, herself.

This is Erin's Grandpa. This was a special trip for them as well, because her grandparents lived in Greenville about 50 years ago, when he was stationed at Donaldson Air Force Base. Things must have changed considerably, because everything was quite different.

And our final star of the show is Dennis, but he does not like to be photographed. You have to be sneaky with him, because if you ask for a picture, this is what you receive:

On Thanksgiving day, Erin and I made a non-traditional, yet traditional, dinner, including: Turkey burgers, Sweet Potato fries (With marshmallow), corn, cranberry cocktails and pumpkin muffins. In other words, it had all of the important elements. It was awesome!!

For entertainment, Dennis brought his Wii. We played bowling, golf, tennis...the whole lot.

The next day, we had a really traditional meal. Erin cooked all of it from scratch. I made myself useful by walking to get donuts for breakfast!

It, too, was awesome. Feel free to come over and help yourself to some leftovers.

After dinner, we took the folks downtown to Greenville. Here's Erin taking a short break.

Downtown was crowded, due to the Festival of Trees that was going on. Falls Park was no exception. The river was still pretty low, but I was impressed with how well my new phone pics came out.

We even saw a snow machine at Piazza Bergamo.

A quick trip inside Mast General store made us feel all cozy inside. (It was 65 and sunny, but hey, it's Christmastime!)

I needed a pickmeup, so we went to Liquid Highway for a coffee treat. I forgot how big these things were. Next time, I'll get the smaller size, I swear!

There was a band and singalongs. Then a big countdown to light up downtown Greenville.

5! 4! 3! 2! 1! ......."that was it?" Most of Main Street is lit up year round, so the few strands they turned on wasn't quite was I was expecting.

Inside the Hyatt, there are dozens of trees setup with different sponsors' ornaments.

On their last day here, we all went out for breakfast. We decided to try a place near our house.

It was a cafeteria style restaurant, with tons of things on the menu.

Here we are, waiting for our food.

I asked for milk, not the cream off the top! Oh well, someone has to drink this whole milk. Ugh.

Here's my breakfast, it was yummy good. It's no Waffle House, but at least there was a lot more seating.

I hope everyone had a great Turkey Day! We ate enough for sure. The house is quiet once again, and we are in no hurry to get the Christmas decorations up (man, am I a grinch or what?!). I'm afraid I won't be home much to enjoy them anyway. In a little over 3 weeks, we'll be driving back to Illinoise to see everyone for Christmas. Can't wait!