It's time for us to start making our own family traditions for holidays now since we can't be with our families every holiday anymore. We missed being with our families this year and having a big home-cooked meal, but we had fun starting some new traditions of our own.
Rather than cooking a big meal for our little family of 3 in our tiny apartment kitchen, we decided to go to Cracker Barrel again like we did last year. We really enjoy not having to cook or clean and still getting to eat a delicious Thanksgiving meal. We think Cracker Barrel's Thanksgiving special is awesome, plus it comes with the best slice of pumpkin streusel pie ever. I've been looking forward to eating a piece of that pumpkin streusel pie since I ate it last year.
Funny little side note: Up until last year I didn't even like pumpkin pie. I would eat every other kind of pie on Thanksgiving except the pumpkin. (The texture of the pumpkin pie grossed me out a little.) Then last year I decided to try the pumpkin pie at Cracker Barrel because it was either that or no pie. The streusel stuff on top masked the weird texture of the pumpkin part, and now I'm a huge pumpkin pie fan. I think I could even eat regular pumpkin pie now, but I'm not sure because I still need to try some.
So, the first tradition we broke was going out to eat rather than eating at home, and the second tradition we broke was eating a Thanksgiving lunch instead of dinner. We met two other families in our ward at Cracker Barrel at noon. We learned that noon was the busiest time after we got there which surprised us because we thought dinner would be more crowded. We waited about 50 minutes which wasn't too bad since their store had plenty of toys to keep the kids entertained while we waited.
Boston really likes Kylie's little brother Beckham. He's 2 months old now and so cute and chubby. Boston is really cute with babies. He likes to give them their binkies and pet their heads.
Another funny little side note: This picture just reminded me that I knocked a full glass of water across the table right into the lap of Brett (Beckham's dad) when I was passing Beckham back to him. It was like that scene on Home Alone where they're eating pizza and the soda gets knocked over and spilld all over the uncle's pants. I felt really bad, but it I guess it just made our Thanksgiving lunch a little more interesting.
Boston also love to hold babies. (I love how pretty Boston's eyes look in this picture.)
Here's all the kids after lunch. We took a few pictures and then headed home so the kids could nap before we went to Sea World.
Walking around Sea World in 70 degree weather felt very untraditional for Thanksgiving day as well, but we enjoyed it so much that we think we want to make Sea World a new Thanksgiving night tradition. It felt good to walk around, it wasn't very crowded, the Christmas lights looked pretty, and it was fun to see all their new Christmas shows.
Even Santa was there. Boston bashfully told Santa he wanted a scooter. He's so cute about meeting Santa this year. He was a little scared last year, but he's all about it this year. I just don't know how he's going to wait an entire month before he gets his scooter. He's already so excited about it.
At the end of the night Sea World did a little Christmas musical, and this is Boston and I watching it. Boston was being so sweet and giving me big hugs. I guess the Christmas music put him in a really good mood. Christmas music does that to me too.
Touchdown! (All the Sea World pictures were taken from Scott's ipod. That's why they're blurry.)
After we got home from Sea World we had some of Scott favorite Thanksgiving day dessert. It's a layered oreo pie with oreos on the bottom, then a cream cheese mixture, then chocolate pudding, then cool whip. I asked Scott what his very favorite Thanksgiving day food was that he would miss the most this year, and that oreo dessert was it. His family calls it Scottie dessert because he likes it so much. I wanted to make a couple of our homemade Thanksgiving favorites so we wouldn't feel too homesick. I usually love the sweet potato casseroles the most, so I just made a really yummy sweet potato casserole today. I also made a maple butternut squash casserole yesterday. Not really a Thanksgiving tradition, but Scott and I both like butternut squash, so I thought we could have something with that in it since we don't normally buy them. (I'm planning to post all the above recipes on my running blog sometime.)
That about wraps up our new untraditional Thanksgiving Day traditions. Lunch at Cracker Barrel, naps, and Sea World. Oh, and we watched Elf after we put Boston to bed. We watched Elf last year too, so I guess watching Elf will be a new Thanksgiving day tradition as well.
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