Happy Thanksgiving for Real This Time!

Hello there friends and family!!

I hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving this year! I for one had a wonderful time with Jason, but also missed my family a whole lot. Thankfully, Thanksgiving started out on the perfect note with a phonecall from mom and her annual turkey wake up call. I got up early and baked crescent rolls with homemade frosting and put on a pot of coffee so I could catch the Macys Parade - which is my favorite and I can never miss it. But Kati, I sure did miss cuddling up with you this year - and yelling at Kris from the living room to get her butt up out of bed to join us!!

When we finally decided to get going, we headed out for some good ol' Southern dining at the nearby Cracker Barrel. :-) We had decided earlier on that because we had celebrated Thanksgiving with the Keith family and Grandma Moreland in October, we weren't going to cook another Thanksgiving meal - it's a lot of work and a LOT of leftovers! We STILL have turkey in our freezer! These are two pictures from when we had our Thanksgiving with the Keiths, Grandma Moreland and our friend Roxanne.

After dinner at CB, we headed over to some friends of ours, Chris and Sara to say hi and have a little pumpkin pie. And we finished the evening curled up on the couch and watching You, Me and Dupree - which was a very lame movie might I add.

The rest of the weekend was very restful and relaxing. I was home most of the weekend reading and hanging out, since Jason had to work Friday night and Sunday night, but on Saturday we did head out in search of the perfect Christmas Tree. And we found it with no problem at all! The first place we had stopped at, we were told that if it was Nobles we were in seach of, there was a guy out in Smyrna that had them shipped in from Oregon! It was a strange concept to me that they have to literally ship Christmas trees in from other states, since most of the trees here are leafy ones. And a lot of people here in town use fake trees! Back home you can't go a mile without seeing a tree lot, but here you have to drive quite a ways just to find one.

So anyway, we find this guy's tree lot out in Smyrna and had no problem finding the perfect tree right away. I would say its close to 6 feet and it was surpringly only $40, which you all know back home is a pretty good deal for a noble. We got the tree home, made tacos for dinner and then Jason wanted to take me out someplace as a surprise. (That's Banks under the tree in the left corner of the picture.)

Jason definately surprised me, by taking me to Opryland Hotel. As we pulled up to the hotel, the lights outside alone were enough to take your breath away. Every Christmas Opryland Hotel decorates their lobbies and conservatories with TONS of lights and decorations. It was like walking through a mini disneyland it was so cool. We walked the entire hotel, which is not small by any means, and sipped coffee from a little cafe. I took a ton of pictures for you all to get an idea for what it was like.

This is Jason and I outside the hotel in front of this gigantic blue lit tree. I've included a picture of the whole tree, so you get an idea of just how huge it is - those little flowers at the bottom, is what we're standing in front of in the first picture of us and also in the picture with just Jason.

This is me in front of a beautiful gazebo inside one of the hotel's conservatories. The pose was special for Jason :-)

Here I am standing on top of one of the walkways over one of the three conservatories. If you look around the edge of the room, you will see the balconies and windows from the hotel rooms. And the ceiling is made of glass. Those are all hundreds of thousands of white lights strung from the ceilings with huge, white light ornament balls hanging throughout the room.

I also included a closer shot of the lights and you can see some of the stuffed animals and hot air balloons that also hung around the hotel. Isn't it gorgeous?

The hotel also has a huge waterfall and we walked into a tunnel that goes behind it. This is Jason in front of the rushing water. He looks like a total rockstar in this picture. I married such a hottie :-)

Finally, one last picture of Jason and I sitting in front of a teddy bear whose wearing a red top hat and striped scarf. Can you see him?

It was so much fun and we had a great time spending some good quality time together. Finally when it was close to 11, we headed back home and Jason began setting up the tree, as I couldn't help but fall asleep on the couch.

Around 2am Jason finished putting all the lights on - and its looks so beautiful! As you can see, Banks has made her home underneath the branches, for some reason its her favorite place to be during Christmas. Sunday was spent by decorating the apartment for Christmas and again I was good and remembered to take lots of pictures of how our home looks now for the holidays.

Meet our ducks Mr. Jones and family. Jason has developed a bit of a fetish for ducks, and I bought him his first one as a surprise about a month ago. Then we decided Mr. Jones was lonely and we added on a family. Aren't they cute?

Here we have the dining room table all ready to go for Christmas.

And this is our console table - once again, you'll notice the ducks.

And finally, before I forget - I just had myself another celebrity sighting! I just rode the elevator up with Sara Evans! She must have been on her way to her divorce lawyer, cause she got off on the 22nd floor and we're representing her husband Craig on our 28th floor. She is absolutely gorgeous and has lost a lot of weight even since Dancing with the Stars. I didn't say anything since she was talking with her friend and I didn't want to interrupt, but it was pretty freakin cool.

That's all I got for now. I hope you enjoyed the pictures!

Happy Holidays everyone!