Tennessee Thanksgiving

The holiday season is upon us and so Nick and I made our biennial journey to join our Tennessee family for Thanksgiving. We were reminiscing of how we came to be included in the Simmons' family festivities and realized that we've been traveling to TN for Thanksgiving for about 5 years now. It all started when Tim found out that Nick and I couldn't make it home for Thanksgiving in 2000 and invited us to join his family for the festivities. We fell in love with their family and have made it a tradition to return pretty much every other year since then. We've also gone down for spring break and a wedding. I love traveling to TN as it is where Nick and I lived for about 3-1/2 years.

We arrived in Nashville, TN, on Wednesday, November 25th and immediately started filling our pieholes with Sandy's wonderful cooking. Thursday a couple of us girls went for a 2.5 mile walk to burn off some calories and make room for our huge dinner. T-Day was spent watching the Macy's Day parade, football, playing games (new game - Bananagrams - a must buy!) and more stuffing of our bellies. I've never seen as many casseroles - besides at potluck - then when we go to the Simmons'! Green bean, asparagus, squash, sweet potato and more... Yummy!!
Several brave souls did rise at some obscene hour to purchase specific items on Friday morning; those of us less crazy, slept in and then us girls treated ourselves to a spa day and shopping later in the morning. We met the guys for lunch and then went and saw Old Dogs. A silly, but cute and funny family movie.
Saturday we were spoiled by one of Sandy's fantastically huge breakfasts before Nick and I headed for Chattanooga to visit Tim and Emily. Tim picked us up in the afternoon and Emily greeted us with another Thanksgiving feast for dinner! We went for a walk and then built a bonfire that night and sat around telling stories and talking with Tim, Emily and Emily's parents. When we couldn't keep warm any longer, we adjourned to the house and played some more games. Sunday we went for another walk along the Collegedale Greenway Trail. It was fabulous weather while we were there and I so wish the trail would have been there when I was going to SAU. After our walk we went and saw The Blind Side; I would have to say that this is one of the best feel good movies I've seen in a long time. Take your family and go see it!!
Monday we returned to Nashville, ate lunch and then headed to the airport. We arrived to freezing Seattle at 11:30 p.m. on Monday night, enjoyed Tuesday off and then noses back to the grindstone on Wednesday.

Hope y'll had wonderful Thanksgivings wherever you were and whomever you were with!! Thanks Simmons Family for adopting us and letting us come spend Thanksgiving with everyone; we are so blessed to have you in our lives!! Looking forward to the next time...