Thanksgiving and Beyond

We had a wonderful Thanksgiving full of food, family, and friends.

We traveled to my hometown in Mississippi. Thankfully, Littlest Buckaroo did take a nap and Little Buckaroo watched a DVD. Yes, we were one of those idealistic couples who said we would not have a DVD player in our car because we would spend our adventure on the road having family time, playing games like watching car tags to see who could get the most amount of states or watching billboards for words that start with each letter in the alphabet in order. Then, we drove out to Colorado last year and we gave up on that fantasy world. The DVD player has been a fixture ever since.

We had turkey and ham (courtesy of our hogs that met their unfortunate end a while back) and all the trimmings. The fun part for me was the day before cooking and preparing. My mom and I make a great team, I prepare things and make a big mess and she like to do dishes. It's a win-win!

My little brother Brandon spoils my kids rotten, Littlest Buckaroo had an enormous amount of chocolate pie. Do you see those dazed eyes? They are in a sugar trance saying "more chocolate please, more chocolate pie please!" Thankfully he had his brother and 8 cousins to run around with to get some of the sugar out of his system.

Our annual chicken trophy ceremony was held with this years recipient being my brother Brandon.

In 1920, my great-grandfather started one of the first chicken hatcheries in Mississippi, it was on the outskirts of the city where I grew up. Well, it was the outskirts then, now it is a very heavily populated area. He was famous for his fine chicks, no I am not talking about my great grandmother, but baby chicks as in poultry. Although my great grandmother was a beautiful southern belle, she was pretty chicky at times.

During his time in the poultry business, he won many awards and honors. For as long as I can remember, I would go into his home office and there was a huge trophy with a chicken on top. It was one of those things that as I grew older you look at it and think who has a big chicken trophy in their home? Two years ago, my grandfather who had been in the poultry business with my great grandfather and lived in the family home, passed away at 93 years old.

As we were going through the house and cleaning things out, there was the trophy in the same place in the office. What do you do with a chicken trophy? I am not sure Goodwill would have much use for it. So, in our family humor we decided that each year one member of the family would be awarded with "the chicken trophy". Big Buckaroo and I had it for the first year and my brother Chris the second year. I am not sure why the only girl of the family would get it the first year, I am sure there are some chicken hiney jokes that flew around between my brothers. Or, it could be that we are the only ones who actually have chickens and they thought it was appropriate. I know what you are thinking, how did a southern belle end up on a state park with chickens? I wonder the same thing every time I have to feed those pesky little peckers.

Congratulations to Brandon and I hope he has a year full of "why did the chicken cross the road" jokes and some finger lickin' good KFC while gazing upon his trophy.

After four days, we headed home. Of course we had to stop at the Mississippi welcome center in Vicksburg so Little Buckaroo could look for Huck and Tom on the river. Unfortunately, it was too foggy and nasty to see if they were out on an adventure. So, we took our adventure on to the house.

I hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving. We are looking forward to Christmas, but I have a zillion things to do before then ~ make Christmas cards, cook, decorate the tree.......

I better get busy. Have a wonderful day,
The Park Wife