For Thanksgiving this year, Daniel and I packed up the car and drove down to the Nashville area to meet his family at a lake house they rented. For our trip there, we broke the driving up over two days with a stop in Knoxville to visit some of my family members. It was so good to get to see some of my cousins, aunts, uncles, and grandparents, but I was especially excited to meet my cousin’s new baby Sawyer! We enjoyed a yummy pre-Thanksgiving dinner at my aunt’s house and then headed on our way for the remaining two and a half hour drive to the lake house.
When we arrived at the lake house, we were surprised at how nice and cozy it was! The owners had even decorated for Christmas.
Daniel’s family arrived fifteen minutes after us, and it was so good to see them! We got settled into our rooms, started a fire in the fireplace, and then pulled out the games. The game of choice that night was Yahtzee!
The next day at the lake house was Thanksgiving! I woke up early to bake my favorite pumpkin cake so that the oven would be available for the turkey the rest of the morning. I turned on the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade for the rest of the morning.
Daniel had pre-made a broccoli cheese casserole at my aunt’s house the day before, and everyone else brought/made something to contribute to our Thanksgiving lunch. We had a fantastic meal!! I just love hearty Thanksgiving food and look forward to indulging in this meal every year.
The rest of the day was spent cozying up by the fire, reading books, and watching movies. Oh, and rocking the Christmas fuzzy socks….
We had fun playing Scrabble with everyone that evening.
Friday we had plans to spend the day in Nashville. We ended up spending a lot of time at the Opry Mills Mall checking out the Black Friday sales. While the mall was crazy, I was surprised that it wasn’t worse than it was. After shopping, we ate at a restaurant called The Pharmacy, a fantastic burger place with a soda fountain. I had the cheeseburger with sweet potato fries and an orange cream soda. We all left the restaurant very happy.
That evening we went to see the Hunger Games (loved it!) and then made some stops on Broadway to listen to some live music.
We slept in on Saturday and spent the late morning/early afternoon reading, catching up on social media, and taking pictures outside of our surroundings and the cute stray kitten that stayed around the lake house the whole time we were there.
The kitty’s head was stuck to the side a little. Apparently, there are many, many things that can cause this.
Then we drove into Nashville to drop off Daniel’s brother at the Greyhound station. Afterward, we made our way to the Gaylord Opryland (the largest non-casino hotel in the country) to admire the Christmas decorations and to have dinner at Jack Daniel’s.
We were exhausted when we got back to the lake house, so I packed quickly and went straight to bed. Needless to say, I was not looking forward to our 4am wake-up call for our thirteen hour drive home the next day!
But at least we had Starbucks and Mellow Mushroom pizza to help get us through it….
This Thanksgiving was very special. We are excited to spend time with my family and more time with Daniel’s around Christmas which is just around the corner!