The Cannon Family

Monday, December 21, 2009

Thanksgiving and a Visit From Nanna

Chad's mom (Nanna) came to visit us Thanksgiving weekend. She didn't arrive until Thanksgiving morning, so I had to fix the entire Thanksgiving meal myself! It was a success. Just looking at this picture makes me want to eat it all again.

BLACK FRIDAY- Chad and I woke at 4:30am to go to Walmart. But cars were backed up out the parking lot, around the corner, up the road, and all the way back up the off-ramp. So we took the other lane and to Target.

The parking lot was jam-packed there too. But Chad's work happened to be next door, with reserved parking! So we parked quick and made it to the door by 5:00am opening time. Of course, there was a ridiculously long crowd of people there ahead of us, wrapped around to the back of the building. Feeling a little guilty and afraid someone would kick us out, we cut in a break in the line anyways. Chad grabbed a video game and I grabbed some picture frames. We made it to the check-out before the crowd.

We ran to the outlets next. We'd already been there at 10:00pm the night before for some special openings, but didn't get to all the stores we wanted to. So we ran around to four stores quick. We got clothes for Kylee and some adorable pajamas for both the kids, although we had to steal Jake's from the mannequin.

We were on the way home but decided to stop by Walmart just for the experience. Chad bypassed the mile long line of cars, flipped a U-turn, and found a quick parking spot across the street. Inside the store, there was hardly walking room. The check-out lines were all the way to the back of the store, and people had things piled far over the top of their carts. We saw some good deal but nothing was worth that wait!

And after six stores, with all the items we wanted, we were home by 7:30, in time to see the kids and Nanna waking up and enjoy a big breakfast. That's the way to do Black Friday!

We then went to the Macy's parade.

Waving to Santa!

Helping Nanna with dishes (this is now her favorite thing to do.)

And Jake stood up to this box all by himself!

The next day we went to the Vista House and waterfalls.

Gingerbread Houses

Kylee had several crafts she insisted on making with Nanna, including this turkey hat.

(Un)Decorating for Christmas

Moving

When we moved to Portland we moved into our apartment sight unseen, but luckily it was a good apartment. Only downsides were no other students with families lived in these apartments, and we had to use a laundry room. But we could put up with this for three years so we swore we wouldn't move while we lived in Portland, this was our third move in just over a year and we were sick of it.

But a couple years later, moving wasn't fresh on our minds and didn't sound so bad. So we decided we'd move into the apartments where a lot of our friends were, save some money on rent, and buy a washer and dryer (instead of wasting $45 a month with coin-op)!

We had a TON of people show up to help us move out of one apartment and into another all in one morning, and it went really fast. Thank you so much to everyone who helped!!

And we're so glad we moved. I LOVE having a washer & dryer, still haven't got over the fun of doing wash whenever I want right in my house. We LOVE being close to friends too! Kylee's face lit up after getting invited over to a friend's house for the second time in just a day, "Is this because we live here now? I want to stay here forever!"