Thanksgiving!!!

Thanksgiving this year was my first without any Hendersons around me... which made me really depressed the days leading up to turkey day. However, while I missed the fam of course, I think my Thanksgiving holiday was as good as it possibly could be away from home. Whitney flew in from Oklahoma on Tuesday night and stayed through Sunday, and we had so much fun. One of our first orders of business was going to the Plaza and sneaking up to the top trying to get to the roof... We couldn't find a way out but we did steal a laundry bag on our way down as a keepsake. No shame. On Thanksgiving morning, we woke up bright and early and went to claim our spot for the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade. And man was it CHILLY... I think this picture sums up the weather for you...

There was nothing else to be done.

We survived the cold though and it was a lot of fun to watch the floats! I will say though, after two years in a row, I think I might enjoy the parade at an appropriate hour in front of a television next year... of course by next year I will have forgotten about my frostbite and probably convince myself to go again. Only time will tell. Here are some parade pics...

7:00am people... Yep, that would be 2.5 hours before the parade showed it face at our spot. 

That's dedication.

Andrew thought it would be appropriate to mosey on in around 8:30 and cut in front of approximately 2000 people to come stand with us. Next year you're holding the spots, buddy! :)

Literally thawing out in some random deli. I have never been happier than when I was drinking that chai.

We headed home and began to prepare a Thanksgiving feast! Now about a month prior, we had "Fakesgiving", which has apparently become an annual tradition. It's basically a trial run for the turkey... and also an excuse to eat a full Thanksgiving dinner a month early. I kind of forgot to take pics, but I do have this on of the original four members of Fakesgiving... meaning the one from last year. But we all returned this year for Round 2!

Fakesgiving was a success so I felt more than confident about Thanksgiving dinner. At Fakesgiving we had 19 people squeezed into our apartment, and we STILL had leftovers. SO, we felt it was obviously appropriate to make the same amount of food for the seven people who attended Thanksgiving. We literally all had our own pie. Totally fine! Yet again, I forgot to take pics except there is this one of me and my dear friend from T-Town, Audrey--

After the feast, we took some naps and prepared for our midnight shopping trip. Yes friends, the fact that we woke up at 5:30 that morning did not squelch our need to participate in Black Friday. At 11:30pm, Janell, Whitney, Andrew and I headed to the Brooklyn Target to STAND IN LINE to get inside. It was amazing. Especially the part where Janell almost got into a physical fight with some guys who decided to cut in line. When we got inside, literally EVERYONE except us had a huge flat screen tv in their shopping baskets. HOW they were planning on transporting these monstrosities back to their respective apartments, I will never know. But I guess people will do whatever is necessary to get a $200 TV. We then headed to Macy's-- why? I will never know. About 4:00am, we could no longer stand up straight, so we headed back and finally went to sleep. It was an extreme day... but so much fun!! 

The rest of the weekend was full of more fun adventures and I'm so thankful for the time I was able to spend with my NYC/Texan friends :)