NaBloPoMo #28 - A good holiday

[annearchy]

We went to Illinois yesterday and had dinner and spent the night with Mr. Annearchy's aunt, his cousin, J; his wife, D; their daughter, K; their son, C, his wife and baby son; and couple other relatives. I guess there were 12 of us altogether. We didn't leave our house until almost 11:30 a.m.; we drove almost 200 miles, stopping only once (at a rest area near the windmills at Paw Paw, IL) for a leak and a snack, and got to cousins' house a little before 3:00. Dinner was at 4:30, and sometime shortly before 4:00 I must have leaned sideways to pick up my can of diet orange soda from where it sat on the floor next to my chair. Well, I guess I should have turned first, then leaned down; whatever, I did something REALLY wrong, and I could tell that I'd pinched a nerve or pulled a muscle or something in my back, just to the left of my right shoulder blade. OMG did that hurt. I convinced my darling daughter to massage my back for a few minutes, and I sat with an ice pack on that area several times during the evening. Dinner was excellent: Turkey, mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes (mine!), green bean casserole, corn, crescent rolls, homemade cranberry sauce, stuffing, and "fluff". If that wasn't enough to put us into comas, about 2 hours later we had dessert - for 12 people there were five (count them, 5) desserts. I had a thin slice of ice-cream cake and some sort of chocolate-oatmeal bar thing. I managed to call my dad at my sister's house around 7:30 and talked with some of my family for about 1/2 hour. The other guests were gone by about 9 p.m. and after that we just sat around and talked for a couple hours. Mr. A and I went to bed around 11:30 and I was hoping to sleep in, but we were in K's room (she lives in Sarasota, FL, and is just visiting for the holiday) and she'd left her cellphone on and in the room - and her phone rang, like an alarm clock, at 6:30 a.m. about 6 inches from my head. Then I couldn't get back to sleep (damn furnace was making banging sounds) so I was up by 7:00 a.m. Cousin D made cinnamon rolls and a delish breakfast casserole for which I MUST get the recipe. We were on the road by about 10:30 but due to a couple of stops we didn't get home until about 2:30 p.m. Mr. A's aunt is almost 88 and she's really slowing down a lot lately, so we were very glad we got to spend some time with her.

Hope everyone else who celebrates Thanksgiving had a great day. I'm thankful for:
My various families (born into, married into and created, meaning DH and DD);
Having a nice home and enough money to pay for it;
Having enough to eat;
Having a good job, even if I complain about it too much;
Having a good health care plan, which I know isn't the case for many people;
Being relatively healthy for my age;
My co-workers;
All of my friends, both in real life and on the Internet (including all of you);
and a lot more things that would probably take a long time for me to think of.