Thanksgiving. I love Thanksgiving. I love all the traditions and the family time and the FOOD. Our weekend as FILLED with activity.

Saturday we went to the Pumpkin Patch with the niece and nephew. Pictures to come tomorrow. We had an awesome time and the weather was amazing. We were definitely thankful for that!

Saturday evening we had dinner with the BFFs. We hadn’t seen them in forever. Once the school year gets going Elise is so busy with coaching and marking and all that fun stuff, but it was nice to finally get a chance to sit down and enjoy their company. What I love about us is that we are casual enough with each other that Elise and I can tap out of the evening at any point with out seeming rude. I passed out on the couch for 2 hours after dinner and she went to bed shortly after that. After my late night nap Colin joined us and we ended up staying till almost 3 watching the Rugby World Cup live. Talk about a random evening! Touch. Pause. ENGAGE.

Sunday I was exhausted and slept most of the day before getting ready to head out to Chads Sisters house for dinner. She made all the traditional Thanksgiving food that I love so I was super pumped. Plus free flowing wine and hilarious stories made for a most enjoyable evening. I even got to spend some quality time with the niece, though our sillyness tends to get her a little hyper, but it’s my fault entirely. I am a big kid that likes to egg her on and we laugh and are silly until something breaks or someone gets hurt haha. Thankfully neither of those things happened this time around! In the theme of Thanksgiving, I must say I am super thankful that I married Chad and his amazing family. You always hear stories about the psycho Mother in Law, or the family from hell and I can happily say neither of us have those.  The Ciavarros/Heagles are the nicest, warmest, most entertaining family on the block! And of course, my family ain’t that bad either ;)

Monday there was more sleeping. Eating and drinking and entertaining is hard work and our bodies needed to recover. We went over to my parents house in the afternoon for the start of our 3rd Thanksgiving dinner (if you count Ryan and Elises as a pseudo one). More food and wine and family. It was good times as always, with the occasional Italian loudness about the garbage bag leaking and the dog licking the plates in the dishwasher and the wanting to go home to watch TV at 7:30. Standard issue really. It’s not family night at the parentals with out it.

And the best part about Thanksgiving weekend? A week filled with amazing leftovers!

We pressed the grapes all day Sunday.

Yes, buying juice and making wine that way would make life easier but would it be this much fun? No, of course not.

This is tradition. This is what we do. This is life.

We are the Italian Stallions.

A couple Sundays ago we had our Family Picnic.

A game of wiffle ball is always in order.

Zia Maria showed us her Frisbee skills.

We ate lots of good food.

Ma and Pa Ehman provided the best photo op to date.

Uncles were in the garden gathering veggies.

I had garden envy.

Elise started a game of Ultimate Frisbee because she can never sit still.

Chad did a good job of running like a dinosaur.

This use to be us, but now we are all grown up.

OK, I think I’m over my negative funk. I know negativity isn’t fun to read, but it happens. I write about my life and if all I did was write about how everything is happy and fun and amazing when it really isn’t then I would be fake, and I hate fake.

Self-fulfilling prophecy. That’s me. All the negative things I think and waste my time and head space on come true. I breed negativity. It’s drives Chad insane. Sometimes it takes over and there is nothing I can do to get over it, and sometimes I take over and kick its butt. This weekend, it took over.

We had nothing planned and I wanted to take advantage of that. I didn’t want to spend 3 days in the house cleaning and watching TV and doing nothing. I wanted to go out doors and explore the city. I had these idea in my head of what we could do, but Mr. Ciavarro poo-pooed some of them (which fed my negativity) and then the ones that actually happened didn’t happen the way I wanted them to, so I sulked over them. Real mature. The problem is if Chad doesn’t get excited about an idea I have then I go from being happy and excited to being sad and disappointed, which is really silly because Chad doesn’t get excited about anything. I need to learn my lesson here.

None the less, the whole weekend wasn’t a disaster, I just had a few melt downs, and thankfully Chad is the most patient man alive.

We went over to the ‘rents Saturday at lunch so Chad could wash his car and we could steal some cured meats from the fridge. I took pictures of random thing because, well, that’s what I do.

After car washing Dad and Chad sat in the garage and drank beers, something Dads wanted to do for 29 years but had never had the opportunity to do so. Mom became irate and kept telling him he looked like White Trash. Hahahaha. I was hysterical. He tried to entice her with a Palm Bay but it didn’t work. Oh the small joys in life.

See Chad, I am capable of joy ;)

We spent the weekend in White Rock, this past. Well, essentially the whole weekend. Saturday was my cousins wedding, with the ceremony out in Burnaby at my Uncles Church (like all the cousins do) and then the reception out in South Surrey/White Rock. Strangely enough I was in a no picture mood, so I didn’t take any photos of the wedding despite carrying around my bulky DSLR all day long. Oh well, enough people took pictures that I didn’t really need to.

Between the ceremony and reception Elise and Ryan joined us for drinks on the In-Laws patio. We were spending the night, since there was no way I wanted to drive home from White Rock at 2 in the morning, plus we had birthday festivities in the area on Sunday.

It was a lovely afternoon of wine and sun shine on their beautiful patio. Mama Ciavarro does an amazing job with her garden and I love spending time on the patio taking in all the beauty.

Sunday we spent most of the day relaxing after doing some shopping at Grandview Corners Shopping District.

The Niece and Nephew came over and we indulged in some fresh local blueberries.

Emily just got her hair cut and officially became the cutest thing ever.

After blueberries and photos and relaxing we all headed over to Grandma Heagles for Jonas and Moms Birthday Party.

Jonas was pretty pumped over the Pirates of the Caribbean Lego Game for Wii that we got him.

Emily and I went exploring in the cat shed. Yes, Grandma has a shed just for her cats. It’s full of cozy blankets and toys, with a few gardening tools. The cats are adorable but I would probably die if I were to ever be locked in a cat shed, given my allergies.

It was a lovely weekend in White Rock. We don’t spend nearly as much time as we should out there. I’m  glad we caught it on a sunny and warm weekend. It was absolutely perfect!