You Can Get Anything You Want...

...at Alice's restaurant.

I hope everyone had a good holiday and has recovered from their turkey comas.

The Thanksgiving tradition started on Wednesday night with drinking, darts, socializing and procrastination (can you say casserole?)! Though, I sucked at darts, I excelled at drinking and socializing. :-)

Thursday started off nicely, but, then driving down to Southern Illinois was a bit rough. I hit the St. Louis area (within radio distance anyway) right about noon. Just in time for the Thanksgiving tradition of Alice's Restaurant. I think I've listened to that on Thanksgiving every year since high school. "Yes, sir, officer. I cannot tell a lie....I *put* that envelop under that pile of garbage." You gotta love it! haha!

Anyway, made it to my folks' house and had a snack while waiting for dinner. Chelsea, my sisters, brothers in law, and nephews all showed up and we had a Thanksgiving dinner that couldn't be beat (heh) and ended up nearly comatose on the couch for the rest of the night.

Then, in great anticipation of "black Friday", I slept in! No bargains for me! Call me crazy, but, there's no way I was going to be standing in line in 20-something degree weather at 4:00am (or earlier) when I could be sleeping in a nice warm bed!! I spent a good part of the afternoon working on Chels' computer. The sound wasn't working, and I'm not exactly sure how, but when I left, it was working. Whew!

Friday night, my parents took me out for dinner for my birthday. We went to 17th Street Bar & Grill. They have awesome barbecue! Award winning, in fact, they've been featured on the Food Network and Bon Appetite chose them as the best ribs in the US! In addition to dinner, mom made me some curtains for my family room. All I really wanted was for her to put a hem in the ones I already had (which were left by the previous owners), but, she wouldn't do it because she said they were ugly and sun-bleached. Maybe I'll actually get them hung up sometime in the next week. :-)

Saturday, I went to my sister's place to check out all the work they have been doing remodeling. It's a completely different place!! So, we hung out and visited a while. Then, after I left, I stopped by the lake to play with the camera. This is what I ended up with.


After that, I met my other sister and her husband out for dinner and drinks. Sunday morning consisted of get up, shower, have breakfast (B's & G's w/sausage), and hit the road. The drive back sucked even worse than the hung-over drive down! Traffic was very heavy and I had rain all the way to I-155, at which point it turned into freezing rain / sleet, and snow!! Of course, about half an hour after I got home, it stopped! :-/ Figures! After unpacking and all that, I called Connie to invite her over for dinner (BTW, can you stop and pick up dinner on the way over? LOL!!). She agrees, only to call back about half an hour later to say she's sick, and isn't coming. I guess I should have just gone to the store myself! haha!

Monday....work...back to the grind. But, wait, that's not all....then, I have to work Monday night (midnight) in Quincy, and Tuesday night (yes, midnight) in Macomb. I swear, I'm going to wear my truck out this week!

That pretty much brings things current. I still haven't done my assignment for photography class...guess I'll have to do that tomorrow! Yikes!