An Altom Thanksgiving

Usually Thanksgiving means a lot of food and a lot of family. This year Thanksgiving consisted of  a lot of food and just our little family. It was a tad different not being with family this Thanksgiving, but Todd and I enjoyed just being with each other. The beginning of the week, I got sick with the flu (sympathy pain for Gus). On Tuesday Gus and and I just slept and I'm sure we looked pretty pathetic what with Gus wearing his "cone of shame" and me stuffing tissues up my nose. I was worried that I wouldn't be good enough to go to the Macy's Day Parade, but fate was on my side and I felt good enough to go. Since this may be our only chance to go to the parade, we had to take advantage of it. We left our apartment around 6am, got some hot chocolate at Dunkin donuts and braved the subway system. We met a nice family from... Michigan... yep that's it. They asked us for any tips but we told them this was our first year doing this too. We gave them our two cents and I guess they trusted us enough so they stuck with us for a bit. Our way of getting to the parade worked very well, it wasn't crowded at all. Even though the parade is a lot more entertaining by Macy's, it's also more crazy and very long, so we decided to watch the parade from where it started, making our wait only 1 and half hours instead of 3+. We somehow lost our Michigan friends (imagine that) so hopefully they got a good spot and enjoyed it. Now, I'm not bitter at all, but I'm just letting it be known that if Todd would have listened to me, we would have had great spots (third row) but Todd thought for sure we could find an even better spot. We ran around trying to find that "better spot" and by the time we realized that it didn't exist, all the good spots I suggested were gone... not bitter though:). The spot we finally picked wasn't to bad though. We were further back but we had a cop car in front of us. That meant that there was no one in front of us really making our view hard and it provided heat. The parade was a lot of fun; the balloons were huge!! I started getting more sick during the parade and we even considered leaving early (and Todd was falling asleep standing up) but I really wanted to see Santa (I know, I'm like five years old). Finally we saw Santa's float and Santa himself, we took a picture and booked it out of there. We wanted to miss crowds so we ran like a hundred blocks (not really but when your sick and out of shape, it sure feels like a hundred blocks). We made it back home by 11:30am... not bad. As fun as it was to go to the parade in person, I think Todd and I would agree that sitting in your pjs, eating a yummy breakfast and watching the parade from the comfort of your couch is just as good! I'm glad we did it, now we don't need to worry about doing it again:).

Todd patiently waiting for the parade to start (oh we played Heart's online and in one game, Todd shot for the moon and I did it twice:), yeah that's right, I won!)

Me staying warm by the cop car (don't mind the no make up and big bags)

Us at the Parade... scary picture of me but it's the only one with both of us (why do guys always look good even if they get up way early?)

The pictures are a little grainy, not sure why (although we did just use our IPhones)

SANTA!!! I KNOW HIM!!

Since we had no family this year, I had to do the whole Thanksgiving meal. It wasn't to bad but we kept running out of bowls to make stuff in and I wanted to make sure everything was done at the same time, but that was hard with limited space and supplies. In the end though, Todd and I had a very yummy Thanksgiving meal. We were very thankful to be eating such a good and big meal, thankful to be together and to have this opportunity to be out east. It seems we have been stressing a lot about things and it is always nice to have a day to really remember how truly blessed and lucky we are. Gus also got a turkey meal and with all this tryptophan in our system we all crashed. We all slept for a good two and a half hours... Gus even slept longer.

Our beautiful table setting... spent a lot of money and time on this one;)

 This is pumpkin cream pie. So for Todd and I's first Thanksgiving together, I wanted to make him a pumpkin pie (along with making it for my family). I spent forever one evening make pie and cookies. I had never made a pie before (well one that requires cooking) so I didn't really know what I was doing. Well, to put it kindly, my pie sucked! Todd was kind of a sport about it... kind of. The outside was burnt and the inside wasn't cooked. Since then, when I say I want to try again at making a pumpkin pie, Todd always suggest just buying one instead. When Mark and Debbie were out here, the boys brought home a pumpkin cream pie; Todd loved it and proclaimed "Ashleigh, I think I could trust you with making this pie." Ah gee thanks Todd. This Thanksgiving I made this pie and a chocolate cream pie for me. I think I pulled the pumpkin pie off... although Todd hasn't gobbled it down like the last pumpkin cream pie he had but he said it was amazing. My chocolate cream pie was wonderful though and it's all gone:).

Friday Todd and I went and saw "Tangled", very cute and fun movie. We also did a little bit of Christmas shopping but we aren't a black friday kind of family. Saturday we watched "The Game" and put up our Christmas tree and watched it snow:)

Saturday night I got sick again... goody and I am still sick now. Tomorrow is the "Lighting of the Tree at Rockefeller." We had always planned on going but as it gets closer and I'm sick, it doesn't sound fun to stand outside for 8hours with a dog just so we can get a good spot. If we don't go, I think we will at least see if we can walk by it as it is lit but everything I read online says that area is crazy, crazy busy that day. We shall see how determined I feel tomorrow and see if I can fight off this cold. Well it seems that I have made this post super long so I guess I shall end for now. We hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving holiday and we are very thankful for all of you in our life!