Thanksgiving!

This week has been nonstop studying for me, but now I finally I have time to post about our Thanksgiving! I had a wonderful week-long break. I worked Mon-Wed (it was an interesting week at the hospital...I got hit on by a doctor while he was doing a circumcision - now that doesn't happen every day! haha) and we spent Thursday and Friday in Kentucky with our family. All but poor Ashley, that is...she had to stay in Little Rock and work and wasn't able to come (if she'd stayed in college an extra year like me, she could've been there ;-). At the Hester Thanksgiving lunch on Thursday, we had our traditional shrimp cocktail, grape salad, ham, green bean casserole, yams...oh yeah, and someone snagged a turkey. We were on our own for supper, though, and we ended up at Cracker Barrel, as that was about the only thing open. Then on Friday with the Hunters we had what has become our traditional barbecue, corn, sweet potato casserole, deviled eggs, and "pink stuff" (a salad that Aunt Vangie makes every year but I've never heard it called anything other than that). Actually, not everyone made it to the Hunter Thanksgiving on Friday...Dad, Jared, and Shelby drove back to Memphis on Thursday night, then to Arkansas on Friday to go to the Razorback game...leaving Mom and I with all four kids (thanks, guys). We were all in one hotel room. The picture above represents our first victory of the night - getting the first child to sleep! Avery is holding Tekia's beloved Faith there. She loves her and walked around all weekend saying, "my Faif, my Faif." She was playing by herself with Faith on Saturday and I actually heard her say, "You're not boss of me." Oh dear.

Here are some pics from our walk after lunch on Friday at Uncle Jim and Aunt Vangie's. Mama Hunter (my great-grandmother) used to take us on walks and make all of us wears scarves on our heads. And though Brittany and I were asking for the scarves, Grandmother and Aunt Vangie said we didn't need them because it wasn't cold enough. The neighbors have some very friendly horses who followed us down the road.

me, Kia, Ave, Jamal, Brittany, & Hunter

Grandmother was picking up cans off the side of the road, and look what we caught her with!

Then the kids needed their picture taken with all the cans they collected. Now it seems Avery's added drinking to her nasty habits.

At Grandma Hester's house...Hunter and Avery with Grandma Hester, their great-great-grandmother.


Paw Paw took Aunt Bernie, Brittany, Jamal, and I to our family cemetery. It's on a quiet little hill back in the woods. Isn't that so neat?

And then there was the ride home. Mom and I had an eventful ride with the kids. Included in the trip were a trip to McDonald's, a visit with Brooks & Cari-Beth in Dyersburg, and of course a stop for a couple of spankings.