For the last couple of years our family has spent Thanksgiving at homes we’ve found on VBRO.com. It has worked out really well and we’ve had a blast each year.
We stayed in a cute house near Gun Barrel City, TX that sat on a huge canal. The house had hard wood floors throughout, a large living room and 3+ bedrooms, each with their own bathrooms.
Chloe loved looking out the window at the blonde squirrel that lived in the backyard. Please note, she is wearing her fishing jacket and yes, that is a fish in her pocket.
We ate so well – for breakfast one morning we had Aunt Shirley’s coffee cake. She wasn’t able to make it, but we made her recipe in her honor.
The weather was pretty terrible, so we took full advantage of being lazy and catching up on sleep.
Clare was able to join us for the entire break and we had a great time playing games and watching one of the best Academy Award winning movies ever – Death Becomes Her.
Mom made most of the side dishes (with Clare’s help) and Dad took care of the turkey. J4 was in-charge of taste testing everything before it actually got to the table. I made a mean buttermilk pie (my fav).
We had the normal side dishes – green beans, sweet potatoes, corn casserole, mom’s white bread stuffing and mashed potatoes.
We ate around 2:30 and then pretty much took it easy for the rest of the day.
I think this is pretty common now-a-days – but it is kinda’ funny (and sad) to look up and see everyone (myself included) on their phone and/or tablet. But it’s the world we live in.
Nathan and Freddie joined us on Friday and Saturday. We were originally going to play golf, but the weather was too terrible to do anything outside. Freddie was just as happy though looking out the window keeping an eye on things.
We are a big games family and all pretty competitive. “If you aint’ first, your last.” We played a lot of Apples to Apples, Spoons, Scrabble and cards.
What’s a family get-together without some family portraits, right?
Even though the true history of Thanksgiving isn’t as peachy as what we were taught in schools, it is really nice to spend a few days with the family, especially since none of us live close by.
While I worked for the Texas Golf Association/Legends Junior Tour, I was fortunate enough to meet some really special people and one of those was junior golfer James Ragan. James was a young man from Corpus Christi who played on our Junior Tour and when he was 13 was diagnosed with osteosarcoma. The five-year survival rate for this orphan of an orphan cancer is 20 percent. During his life James founded Triumph Over Kid Cancer and brought awareness to osteosarcoma, which it desperately needs. To date, TOKC has raised over $3 million for cancer research at MD Anderson. James’ family – his mom, dad and sister Mecklin – are unlike any family I’ve ever met. I don’t think I could ever write words to accurately describe this family. James lost his battle to cancer in February of 2014 but during his last year Geraldine Meadows and Jamila Rowell began filming a documentary about his life. It’s been several years in the making, but Until 20 had its world premiere at the Austin Film Festival. Mecklin was kind enough to invite me two of my old co-workers to the premiere. Since Nathan’s sister recently moved to Austin, we had been talking about going for a weekend anyway, so this ended up being a great time to take our trip to Austin.
The premiere was full of a lot of emotions – for everyone. The Paramount Theater was packed and I’m sure everyone there had some special connection to James. Behind us in line was his 6th grade teacher and she pointed out several other of his teachers. Kellen and I also saw several other LJT golfers/alums who also grew close to James. Below is the trailer for Until 20. This film was incredibly well done and after the AFF, this will be showing at the Virginia Film Festival as well.
After dinner, Nathan and I walked next door to the Roaring Fork. OMG. Their food was amazing. The next day was our tourist day. Nathan went to the University of Texas so spent several years living in Austin and since I’ve only ever been to the city for work, I was really excited for him to show me around. We walked around campus…
stumbled upon a small Halloween festival…
And found a fun little food truck park.
Nathan is a huge pasta man and more specifically he loves his beef stroganoff. We met his parents, Kate and Louis for dinner at Carmelo’s – which was ah-mazing! We had an awesome dinner and yes, I’m the weirdo that takes home everyone’s leftovers. So good!
Sunday morning we had brunch by Kate’s place and then met her and Louis at the TMBBQ Fest. Y’all. You know I love to eat and even though I was already full from the previous couple of days, I powered through and ate several really good samples. We had a blast and couldn’t have asked for a nicer day.
The past week was so busy for us – opening night of Kinky Boots in Fort Worth with my musical partner in crime Cat…
a scary haunted house with his cousin Lee…
a TCU game with Lee and his wife Blair…
and a jam-packed weekend in Austin. Phew! I’m exhausted but can’t wait to go back!
