Thanksgiving with the Greenwoods

Here's what a 36 hour period at the Greenwood household with a slough of Greenwoods looks like.

The entire family was on the internet. All of the laptops were up and running while we were watching movies or just sitting around. At least we weren't chatting with each other online, we were actually speaking to each other. But, it was really fun be talking about something and watch someone head to Wikipedia or Google to get more information.

Jim - cooks. The poor guy seems to be always cooking! But, the good news is - he loves it. He loves experimenting with different flavors and he loves watching his family experience what he has done. He did an amazing job with the Thanksgiving dinner - all of the fixins. This morning he was up early and made breakfast - experimenting again! But, we had a casserole that used up the mashed potato leftovers (base of the casserole) added eggs and bacon, etc and then he topped it off with some doctored up leftover gravy. Oh yummy. For lunch he made a split pea soup. You have to know that the idea of that turned my stomach. I watched my father cook that for every single lunch for a lot of years ... and I know that's what they used in "The Exorcist" when Linda Blair vomited all over everything. However, Jim asked me to taste it and I know what a good cook he is. It was awesome ... except for the fact that there was a lot of 'heat' in there (read: chili peppers) and I'm a pepper wimp.

Carol. Well, Carol is as Carol does. As they tried to get out of the house this morning to go shopping, Carol told me that she had found her glasses. Since I had lent her my extra pair last night, I asked where they were so I could make sure things were back where they were supposed to be. Ummm ... yup. She had lost both pairs by that point. After much searching around, she discovered that she had promptly placed them in her backpack. Then, she couldn't find her coat. She knew she had it since she had gone for a walk the day before. They searched closets and bedrooms, all over the place. Jim found it somewhere. As we were getting ready to leave tonight, she carefully packed up her laptop. She opened her laptop bag and there was no power cord. She had to wander around - searching out where she might have put it down as she was packing. This girl can't move into a large home - she'll never find anything. She seems to always be the entertainment at the gatherings. We laugh at her a lot.

Janet. The woman is a dork! We knew this when she met Jim and married him, but she keeps getting worse. She has this incredibly ... well ... strange sense of humor and when it pops out, we giggle a lot and shake our heads. But, she also does a lot of the structure for this family. When they began to express an interest in the "Twilight" book series, they got the audiobooks and those are loaded on iPods ... the kids have been having a great time listening to these stories. Well ... as I was looking at the packages under her tree, I discovered that the Twilight characters were giving gifts to her family. Yah ... it's never just Santa's name under the tree ... you never know what is going to show up on your gift tag! She's a gadget geek, too and I think she has raised her children to love those things as well so that she has an excuse to bring the weird things into the house.

Max. He's actually pretty quiet. It was nice for him to have his camera with him - that seems to allow him a lot of expression. Max had announced his desire to leave his carb-free diet at home for the holiday and Jim took that as a personal challenge when cooking. But, poor Max - his heart wasn't really in it. At one point during dinner, he was trying to have a conversation and Jim zapped him, "Max! You are talking! You never talk at these meals! What's wrong? Have you lost your zeal?" Yup ... that happens when you lose 35 pounds.

Matthew. Well, this was a rough holiday for my boy. His girlfriend broke up with him and his heart was just laid open ... raw, wounded. I'm so thankful that it happened while he was at home. He is so sensitive and loving. It was hard on me to see the pain that he was dealing with. But, the good news is that he is also fairly pragmatic. He knows that life moves on and at some point he'll get there too. Just not today, just not right now. For right now - it hurts. Jim decided that guy's night out watching a testosterone filled movie was a good idea - James Bond ... here they come!

Emma is the queen of texting. If she wasn't texting her friends last night, she was talking to them online. She loves her friends! It's hilarious watching her interact with her parents. She's as stubborn as any of them and is not afraid to voice her opinion. She does all the girl stuff and couldn't wait to get out this morning with Carol and Janet to go shopping. And then, when one of her friends wanted to hook up, couldn't wait to dump them and head out with a friend. Awesome!!! (hehe)

Jake. Well, he's a geek. He spent most of the time doing 3 things. He played a lot of World of Warcraft. He listened to "Breaking Dawn" and then, he was creating hydrogen from water using electricity and anodes and ... aw heck, I have no idea. He watched his science teacher at school doing some fun experiments and decided to see what he could come up with. He scared his mother - we all know that hydrogen is flammable. Fortunately, there wasn't enough created to make a boom - it was more like a pop.

Dogs. Jackson - a big, stupid Vizsla. Very loving, desires to be near a human all the time. He's only about a year old and is still trying to figure out what to do with all of his height and his speed. But, you can obviously tell that he's Pinky in the bunch. And the Brain? Well, that's Nicky. The West Highland Terrier/Schnauzer mix. Smart dog. Independent dog. Carol wanted to steal him - she loves him. Leica loves being there - she gets free rein outside - no leashes, no one telling her to come in until she's ready. She chases with the two dogs, but gets a bit protective of her family. However, she's a lot more tolerant of those two animals being around her people than she is of the cat that she lives with!

We ate a lot of food, watched some movies, did some shopping - some in town and some online. We watched movies (I really did like the newest "Incredible Hulk"). Jim made fun of Liv Tyler's big collagen-injected lips. He also started in on Angelina Jolie's lips. Whoops! He says that a week isn't fully complete without watching at least one Harry Potter movie - so ... we watched two.

You know? I can't wait for Christmas.