Happy Thanksgiving!

Happy Thanksgiving from the Sandholm's! We had a busy day yesterday beginning at 10 AM with Gabe participating in Cock Bowl 2006. This is a flag football game that some friends began inviting us to participate in about three years ago, and the MVP of the game gets his or her name engraved on a trophy which consists of a gigantic straw rooster (which I think someone got as a wedding gift or something) mounted to a wooden trophy base with engraveable gold plates attached to it. Despite Gabe's level of dirtiness, he did not make MVP status this year. But, that's OK -- there is always next Thanksgiving!

It was pouring down rain, really windy and about about 40 degrees for the game. So, it was pretty much miserable and freezing. Before he could get into the car to go home, Gabe had to strip down to his biking shorts, take off his socks and cleats, remove his muddy shirts and put on the only jacket he would bring along -- his Miami Dolphins pullover -- before he could get into the car. Needless to say, the guy was FREEZING. But, the car heated up fairly quickly and hypothermia did not become an issue. Talk about a dedicated flag football player, though!

In the afternoon we made our way over to our annual Thanksgiving dinner with the Haslam family, where we proceeded to play with the new Nintendo Wii gaming system that M-L brought along for us all to enjoy. Now, I'm not a big video game fan, but this gaming system was actually pretty fun. And, it's not your typical video game system -- you actually have to MOVE and not just be a lump sitting on the couch getting increasingly worse carpal tunnel or Blackberry thumb or whatever it is one gets from just exercising your fingers on the game controls. The game controls are wireless and have gyroscopes built into them, and you need to move them around in the exact same motions you would use to do things in real-life to golf, bowl, box, play tennis, spin cows over your head and throw them (don't ask), shoot some psychotic looking bunnies with plungers and do surgery on Japanese anime looking patients before they die. People were actually getting SWEATY playing this game. So, if we are ever to get Junior a video gaming console, this may be the one to get, so we can at least he can get some sort of exercise in -- even if it is indoors.

Then, after the couple hours of video game playing, we had a great dinner, which, in preparation for, we managed to catch the dinner rolls that we contributed to the meal on FIRE in the gas oven, setting off the fire alarm just as the new Haslam twins were about to be put down for the night. Good news, though -- Gabe came prepared and we had an "extra" couple dozen rolls on hand, so we just threw out the charred ones and made the new ones. Crisis averted.

I personally ate myself absolutely silly to the point of feeling what I think was the most miserable I've ever felt in my life. But, the feeling passed while we all sat down to play Trivial Pursuit and I proceeded to take up most of the couch as I basically sprawled acrossed the entire thing. Gabe's team won that game, and my team came in a close second, but the bigger point was that we actually FINISHED the game -- a rarity! Typically we all get too tired to keep going, so we just sort of end it. But this time, we actually powered through to the end. Definitely was a great time, and it's so nice that the Haslam family continues to take us in year after year to join them on Thanksgiving, even when we catch food on fire and take up all the room on the couch. :)