Thanksgiving In New York

Last week the Doctor had the joy of meeting the family in full force. Yes, he joined me in lovely upstate New York for Thanksgiving with the family. But not only did he join me for the family dinner but we were in New York for five entire days. That is the longest time I have been home in about ten years.

The trip started on Tuesday night leaving DC around 9:15pm. We figured it would be better to leave at night than brave the Wednesday traffic, so I picked up my cousin on the way back into the city on the side of the road, and then picked up the Doctor and the dog. We started the trip by trying to get my new XM to work, that took an hour of the trip but to no avail. Then we flipped radio stations for a good hour, and then it was midnight and we found ourselves in the mountains during a snowstorm. It appears that my GPS decided to keep us off 95 and bring us through Pennsylvania instead. Probably a great idea with the exception being that my GPS cant tell the weather. There was no traffic though.

We arrived in New York with dog in hand around 4:00 am. Built the dog cage, and then went to bed. I set my alarm for 9:30 so that I could walk the dog in the morning, but it turned out that I didn't need to because by the time I got up my Dad had walked the dog twice.

Wednesday was Thanksgiving prep day, we did some shopping, the Doctor bought stuff to make Sweet Potato pie, and prepped it, and we went to dinner once my sister got in from Boston.

Then it was Thanksgiving, we generally get to my Aunt's house around noon and the binging commences. As usual there was a tremendous amount of food and by 1 there was about 20 people at my Aunt's house. The Doctor got to meet the entire side of my mother's family pretty much all in one day. Appetizers continue for a few hours and then the table is cleared and set up for dinner. Of course I am still at the kids table, but at least the Doctor is older than me and gets to be the oldest at the kids table. We enjoy dinner, go home let out the dog, and then decide to bring her to my Aunt's house. She gets along well with people and is such a good vacation dog, but I was a bit worried that this may be too many people. After we got back the second wave of people arrived bringing the total close to if not over 30. Ah yes, it was time for dessert, and of course there was about 8 options on the table. I am not sure the Doctor knew what to do with all the options but he opted for cheesecake and I opted for pie and we switched halfway through.

By this point the Doctor was exhausted, he was pacing himself with the wine in order to keep up with names and faces, but enough is enough. Heck, half the time I can't remember family members names let alone girlfriends and husbands and wives. The family keeps getting bigger as my dad said in the things he was thankful for, but by the end of the night I think the Doctor was hoping that my family got smaller before the next time he visited, that way he had a better chance of remembering names.

All in all Thanksgiving was a success, and it was a very nice day to be home with friends and family, and I was very thankful that the Doctor joined me. I guess I really can't ask for more.