Turkey Day

Well, my week off has come and gone! Thanksgiving was wonderful this year. I drove to Abilene Tuesday night to help my cousins with the preparations. Dana's parents came Tuesday night also and we played a mean game of 42 that night after dinner. Aunt Joyce and I were on a team against Dana and Uncle Charles. I had a perfect first hand (I'm telling you, 5 of one suit and two doubles!) and I was the second to bid. I bid 2 marks, but Aunt Joyce, my PARTNER, outbid me...3 marks. Luckily, we pulled it off (even though I was a bit upset...I really wanted it!). So we play 3 games of 7 hands each. Aunt Joyce and I won the first round, Uncle Charles and Dana won the second round, and we were tied with "AL" on the third round. I drew my dominoes... 4-4, 4-6, 4-5, 4-1, 3-3, 2-2, 1-1...another perfect hand (let me just say that this NEVER happens, especially to me!). Unfortunately, I was the first to bid. I tried the 2 marks thing again. Dana passed, Aunt Joyce passed, and Uncle Charles...decided to raise my bid to 3 marks! He bid in 2s and I knew I had it (the double). So, even if I didn't get to play my hand, I did get to catch one of Uncle Charles' first tricks to set their team and win the game! Hooray!

Wednesday rolls around and I helped Dana and Aunt Joyce prepare the feast. We ordered our turkeys from Betty Rose's in Abilene, and the Williamses brought the ham. I was in charge of mixing together the "company potatoes" while Dana and Aunt Joyce put together the dressing, pink and orange salads, and other things. When we finished, Uncle Charles spent the next 4 hours slicing the meat. What a trooper!

On Thursday, the fun began. My family drove up from Kerrville and the other 40-some-odd folks from our Sheerer lineage all showed up at University Church of Christ's Fellowship Hall for dinner. Our reunions have expanded so much that normal houses are a bit cramped for all of us. At the church, we were able to all eat in the same room (!), and then spread out to either play games, watch the Cowboys, play on the playground, etc. We also had enough room for everyone to participate in our men vs. women game of Trivial Pursuit. The men earned each slice of pie before the women earned even two! However, for some reason, they couldn't land in the middle of the board. This bought us ladies some time and we caught up, but it wasn't enough to beat them. They ended up winning. We're good sports, though...

After lunch, we played our first annual game of Sheerer family Ultimate Frisbee. My family doesn't exactly "sport" and we've never had a game of football after the feast. We have been known to play knock-out basketball, but not as many folks can participate. I believe Ultimate Frisbee will become a tradition, even though we all agreed that we probably need to work out at least a little before Thanksgiving next year... It wore us out!

Here are some more pictures that I wanted to add. I never realized how many blondes are in my extended family. We all had similar lengths of hair, so we had to capture the moment ----------------------------------->

Every year, we have to take family pictures. This year, we took a Rich family picture and a Sheerer cousins picture.
To see the extra pictures, click here. I am so thankful for my family and for our crazy traditions.