Happy Thanksgiving to all!!! (U.S. & CDN)

I am so thankful it is finally here! I was thankful for our Canadian celebration last month just a few days after our "truck in the house" incident. We have plenty to be thankful for. Then the photo pumpkin patch had an overwhelming response which has left me thanking many families for the great time and great pictures. The month just really flew by & I'm still trying to catch up with everything. We have also had visitors that we were thankful to see and we have been the visitees (does that work?) We traveled to Kalispell, MT one weekend, then cruised to Great Falls, MT for the day with a friend for preview Christmas shopping. A couple of days later, ventured down to Provo, UT, so the boys could go to the BYU football game, and Clark & I could visit and "play" with our friends. (hee, hee, Amanda & Val "play"-terrible, I know) We are thankful to them for letting us stay and visit and for all their hospitality and friendship. Three days after returning from Utah, Clark and I jumped in with my mom and headed to Edmonton to visit Keri and her girls and help Mason & Megan move into their new home. We were glad to help but some banking glitch didn't allow them to move in on the days we were there, our backs were thankful, so we were off to the rollercoasters and shopping at the world's biggest mall ~ West Edmonton Mall (is it still the biggest?) Four days after our return from up north, my mom, Mandy, Keri and myself headed down to Great Falls, MT, for the biggest shopping day of the year!

We were having dinner at the Golden Corral on Thanksgiving evening, and out the window we see a tour bus pull up. Keri joked that it would be funny if it were full of women coming to shop, due to our gitty anticipation of the next day. Before long, the restaurant started filling up with women! We were laughing and couldn't believe it, so I headed towards them to get the scoop. They were indeed, part of a three bus tour, signed up for Black Friday. They came from St. Albert, AB (just north of Edmonton, making it a 9 hour bus ride), women of all ages and ready to shop! They had a package deal and were making the most of it.

We saw people from Raymond and area all over the place. It was so fun. I was thankful to spend time with my mom & sisters. It was definitely a memorable tradition that we have started. We shopped for 20 hours on about 4 hours of sleep. We were to excited to sleep and up at 4 a.m. in the line at Target. Thankfully, Mandy & my mom ran to ShopKo which opened at 5 a.m. and got MP3's for $20. We all got portable DVD's at Target for $84, my mom scored camcorders for $69 & a camera for $120 and we all got digital frames for $50 (reg. $200). DVD's started at $3.98 and I think I now have a small library. We had so much fun and our feet and backs were thankful once we finally let them rest.

At Target we were wrapped up in sleeping bags with the temp. being -7 degrees Celcius for an hour and 40 minutes waiting for the doors to open. We were 20th in line and once the doors finally did open we were swarmed. The girl behind me kept saying, "ah, I'm getting trampled", I also had a lady keep pushing me in my back and I finally turned to the 55+ yr. old and yelled, "lady, quit pushing!". I then giggled right after. The Target employees were yelling out not to run. Mandy was speed walking while I was cheering her on from behind, "Go, Mandy Go!"and she hit the electronics very first in search of the guitar hero for the wii. There were only six and they didn't carry one for the wii. She would have been totally triumphant in her shopping excursion that day had it been for the absent guitar. There is always Canada, Mandy, hold strong.

We had a great time as our coughs became more pronounced with phlegm. We were packed to the roof in Mandy's expedition. Thankfully, my dad came down to purchase water heaters for their house and his truck gave us a lot more cargo room. We can't thank him enough for feeding us before we left Great Falls, and also even more thankful he filled up the gas tank, since we were all tapped out. He didn't make us return any of our purchased to get gas money to drive back home. ; ) We were thankful that there was not a line at the border and a special thanks to our border officer who quickly gave us our GST charge and off we went.

I am almost caught up on my sleep, my toes are defrosted and my voice has come back just this morning. It was awesome!!! A Thanksgiving I won't forget and I'm so thankful my Christmas shopping is done and did I mention, that it is all wrapped too!!! Who wouldn't be thankful for that!

Happy Shopping & Happy Holidays!!!

Black Friday!

These are my favorites from the front page of the Great Falls Tribune. Good stuff!


"We actually had a really great day yesterday, with the most sales of any Wal-Mart in Montana," Lerud said. "Thank the Canadians."

"I'm in the military, but I thought this was a little rough," he said.

Retailers coaxed consumers out of bed early with deep discounts on everything from apparel to electronics. Canadians, armed with a strong dollar, made up a sizeable portion of the mix.