Too Much to Be Thankful For

This past week I experienced what I fear may begin to be a trend in my life - spending holidays away from my family. This past Thursday was the first time I have ever been anywhere but in Rhode Island for Thanksgiving, and if I end up living outside of the Northeast (as I plan on doing after CAP) then this may become more of a common occurrence than I would like it to. This is not to say that I did not have a wonderful time during my Thanksgiving break, but it was strange to not find myself sitting at the 'young people' table in my kitchen listening to my loud Italian family having the yearly discussion about how 'we really should eliminate one of the four courses from the meal' which is always followed by uproar and the firm decision that we could never do that because then someone's favorite would be gone. I am however comforted by the fact that I get to see my family in two short weeks and I probably saved myself a few thousand calories this Thanksgiving day.

Now for the re-cap of my Thanksgiving adventure to Okemos, Michigan.

I spent my break at Kevin's house with his family - his parents, older sister, and aunt - and another volunteer Caitlin who we both worked with at Camp the past two summers. We left for Kev's house on Tuesday morning and stayed until Sunday morning - the most time I've spent away from Kentucky continuously since moving here in July. The drive takes about 8 hours if you don't run into too much traffic and everything goes smoothly. This is me we are talking about so you should have already guessed at this point that things did not go according to plan and after stopping for lunch in Anna, Ohio, we went out to Kev's car (who I affectionately call Buddy - the car not Kevin) to find a flat as a pancake rear driver's side tire waiting for us. Now Kevin already despises the state of Ohio for reasons I still do not completely understand, but getting a flat tire was definitely not helping its reputation. He was able to get the lug nuts off, but unfortunately the tire was rusted to the car and no amount of kicking at it or yelling or pleading could get the tire to budge so we were forced to call AAA for assistance. While waiting for AAA to make an appearance, we discovered the front passenger tire was also really low on air and that Buddy was in desperate need of some oil. Needless to say, Buddy was in dire straights and deserved some some serious TLC which he fortunately was able to receive via a Truck Tire Stop right down the road. Despite my original misgivings about the tire place, they were really good and had our tire fixed up and us back on the road in no time and after some traffic near Ann Arbor we finally made it to our destination.



There were a couple things on our to do list for this trip, including hockey, some shopping, and a Jimmy John's trip. There was one last minute addition to the list - get my stitches out - as the hospital in Kentucky told me on Tuesday they were not quite ready to come out and I needed to return the following day. Therefore, Wednesday I found myself in a orthopedic surgeon friend of the McCullough family's office waiting to get my two stitches pulled out of my eyelid. I just have one piece of advice for all of you - don't ever get stitches in your eyelid. It is terrible both getting them in and getting them taken out. They are so tiny and your eyelid is so delicate and its just not an experience I would wish upon anyone. However, in the end I got both my stitches out and my eye is none the worse for the wear minus a tiny scar that I'm told is barely noticeable.

Myself, Caitlin, Megan (Kevin's sister), & Kevin

One place that we spent a good deal of our vacation at was the ice rink. We went on three separate occasions to be exact - twice to watch Kevin play pick-up hockey and once to go ice skating. Watching hockey can be quite entertaining, but it is also very very cold. I mean this should be an obvious fact since the place is composed of ice, but I didn't fully comprehend how cold it was going to be until after sitting on the bleachers for awhile and I noticed I could see my breath in the air. I have only been ice skating once before in my life and that was last year so I was pretty nervous about going to free skate. However, I did not do too badly at all. I even learned to skate backwards a little. Its a lot more difficult than I would have thought especially after watching all the guys at pick-up hockey seamlessly switching between forwards and backwards but then again most of them have been playing their whole life. Caitlin also had the chance to practice her figure skating skills while we were at the rink and therefore earned the prize for the most falls - a grand total of six. If you know Caitlin at all, this should not surprise you at all and in her typical style each fall was more entertaining than the latter complete with flailing arms and screaming.  

Before I continue on with the next story of my weekend, I need to throw a disclaimer out there.

*This next paragraph is not meant to insinuate in any way that Kevin is a bad cook rather that he is a highly entertaining one.*

Ok, now on with the tale. 

Caitlin trying the rice

First a little back story - Kate and I had recently decided at the house that Kevin should have a cooking show because it is so much fun to watch him cook. Once he gets more than one thing going on in the kitchen at a time - watch out! The other day he was cooking pasta on the stove top, had mozzarella sticks in the oven, and was warming up the dipping sauce packet in the microwave. It basically involved him running around the kitchen looking quite frazzled while he was trying to keep everything going at the same time without burning anything which he did manage to accomplish minus a small explosion in the microwave. Kate and I decided that we would produce said cooking show for him under the title of 'Oh Sh*t, the Pasta's on Fire' or the more PC title of 'Kitchen Catastrophes with Kevin'. I tell you this because while we were at his house Kevin decided to make rice and it could have been an episode on the show. He put the rice and water on the stove and it had been cooking for awhile when his mom came over and asked him if he was sure about the amount of rice he had put in the pot in relation to the amount of water. Kevin insisted he was sure he had done it correctly and grabbed the bag to prove his point and then realized that he had put too much rice in and now instead of the few servings of rice he had planned on making we had eleven servings of rice cooking on the stove. Because the ratio of rice and water was off, it took forever for the rice to cook and when it finally finished it was rather sticky, but have no fear it didn't go to waste as Caitlin was brave enough to help Kev finish off the eleven servings of rice.

Caitlin & I at the hockey rink

One of the last fun experience I have to share with you from our trip was the sleeping arrangements I had for the week. Caitlin and I shared a pull out couch for the trip which with any other person would most likely have been more than enough room. However, Caitlin has a tendency to be a very active sleeper. She not only talks and moves around in her sleep, but she is also a blanket hog and a sleep laugher. Yes, a sleep laugher which is just as creepy as you can imagine it would be. The last night of our trip I was having trouble sleeping and was lying in bed wide awake trying to hold onto the little bit of blankets I had left on my side when I heard Caitlin start muttering in her sleep and then burst out with this line "Damn you and your prosthetic leg!". I don't think I even want to know what she was dreaming about.

This post is just an overview of my week. There is no possible way that I could sum up the entire vacation in one post nor do I want to. This post alone has taken me way too long to write and I don't think I could handle sitting at my computer much longer. If you want to read another account of our trip than you can check out Caitlin's blog - just click HERE! 

I guess that all I have left to say is that if I had to be away from my family for Thanksgiving I couldn't have asked for a better way to enjoy the holiday than this past week.