John has had a desire to play an instrument for awhile now. So with his new found passion for "fake" guitar playing, I thought an actual guitar would be a wonderful hobby to pick up on this benchmark birthday. We bought the guitar online together so I knew he was getting exactly what he wanted. Although John knew a guitar was coming for his birthday, he had strict instructions that he could not open it until his birthday. The day that the box is delivered I come home only to find out that John has broken a string on the guitar. BUSTED! The string was fixed and the box was taped up until November 3rd. Once his birthday came, our home has been filled with beautiful melodies that he is learning off the Internet and from books. He is picking it up quickly and it is has been a lot of fun to watch the progress.
On November 24, the Clem's including Tessa hit the open road to drive to Glen Rose for Thanksgiving. It is about a 10 hour roadtrip and we were both a little nervous about how our dog would handle being in the car so long. Here are a few things we discovered on the trip...
1. Tracy gets bored driving.
2. John gets bored not driving.
3. Everyone in the car is a lot happier when Tracy is not driving and John is.
4. Our dog, Tessa, can go an amazingly long time without going to the bathroom.
5. It is not faster to drive through Amarillo...no matter what the TomTom says.
6. Tracy's threshold in the car is 10 hours.
7. Tessa's is 8.
8. Every meal must include french fries.
9. We get abnormally happy when we see gas below $1.50.
10. There is something euphoric about getting a Dairy Queen Blizzard on the last leg of the trip.
Tessa before 8 Hours!
Tessa after 8 hours!
Tessa after 8 hours!
We had such a great time in Glen Rose. On Tuesday, my parents were working so John and I decided to visit Fossil Rim, a wildlife reserve. It is one of the parks were you can drive through and feed the animals. John had never been to a park like this so he really had a great time. If you are ever in the Glen Rose area...you have to check it out, http://www.fossilrim.com/. We got some fun pictures!
John getting attacked by Ostriches.
John and Steve (my Dad) attempted bird hunting again with Uncle Randy and my cousins. This time they saw all the dove you can imagine. The problem was-it isn't dove season. Although they did not even shoot the guns, John said it was a lot of fun watching the dogs getting trained. (My dad got two bird dogs for his birthday and this was their first trip out) Ricky joined us Tuesday and Gayle and George as well as their two dogs joined us Wednesday night. This now brought the dog total to 5. My parent's garage looked like they we running a kennel!
This was the first Thanksgiving we have had at my parent's house. We have mostly gone to my grandparent's in the past. It was so much fun to have everyone cooking in the kitchen...and there were no cooking disasters! A big accomplish for the first time. We saw lots of family (The Wright side) and ate WAY to much. That evening we had the standard Wade Gaming Night including some of our favorites Chicken Foot (which I won) and Scotland Yard (which John won) Sorry Marshalls....you will never be the board game champions the Clems are!
The boys avoiding the kitchen!
A competitive game of Scrabble with Mema
The Cleaning Crew (My mom and Aunt Jill)
John--Post Glen Rose Thanksgiving
It is a Wade tradition to go to a Christmas tree farm each year and pick our tree out as a family, cut it and bring it home. With everyone being in different places, we do not get to do that together anymore. On Friday, we decided to go get the tree. Gayle read the information card for the farm and determined that they opened at 9am. We decided to load up the whole crew early so we could decorate all day. As we pull in at about 9:15am and their are no cars in the parking area, we suspected something wasn't quite right. They didn't open until 3pm. (9am is the weekend hours) So we went home and we re-loaded back up at 3pm to get our tree. We ran out of time to decorate so we snacked on leftovers and busted out the games again. We had a girls against boys Taboo tournament...girl's are the remaining Champs. We, also, played Apples to Apples with the whole crew...but of course one of the Clem's took home first place!
The Future Mr. and Mrs. Marshall
aka Gayle and George
Saturday, the Wade side of the family joined us for some Texas Barbeque! It was another big eating day full of family, which was great. We had a a lot of family come that we had not seen in awhile...some John had never met. It was great to see everyone and catch up.
Saturday, the Wade side of the family joined us for some Texas Barbeque! It was another big eating day full of family, which was great. We had a a lot of family come that we had not seen in awhile...some John had never met. It was great to see everyone and catch up.
Major (He is one half of my twin cousins)
Gayle, Touy and Granny looking at Wedding Stuff
Gayle, Touy and Granny looking at Wedding Stuff
Sunday morning we all headed out to breakfast at Glen Rose's greasiest spoon, Debbie's. My dad introduced John to this place awhile back and now it is a must before we leave town. After that, we hit the road with a totally exhausted mutt after five days of playing.
November was a great month and we got to see so much family both John's and mine, which we love. We have much to be thankful for!
