The Pre-Turkey Weekend

Well - turkey day is just 72 hours away. Actually...at this point it might be less than 72 hours away, depending on what time you plan on eating your turkey! I don't know..

What I do know is that it's getting closer to 5:00 o'clock on Monday and this week is a short week, so I'm that much closer to a four day weekend - always a wonderful thing indeed!

Friday evening was spent laying low - dinner at a local Mexican restaurant with a salsa bar, cruising Aldi for some things to pad the groceries until the big Thanksgiving shopping session and doing a little laundry. After our Mexican feast, I decided that a little time spent on the elliptical would be good and so I even got in some exercise on Friday night!

My sister's flight from Vegas arrived at 4:30 in the morning - sheesh. My Dad was the saint that went over the river and through the woods to pick her up and the trip ended up taking longer than expected because Frontier Airlines "lost" 25 bags on a straight flight from Vegas to DC. While she did get her bag by the end of Saturday, Frontier Airlines won't exactly be getting a ringing endorsement from us any time soon...

We all ate breakfast together and then went shopping - mostly because at this point we weren't sure when Lindsey would get her bag and she needed actual clothes to wear. I picked up some new things at Loft and Old Navy; already having great sales ahead of Black Friday, I made sure to grab some things in the cream/burgundy family for a family photo shoot on Sunday afternoon. After scooping up some deals, Lindsey changed in the bathroom of Belk (ha-ha) and we headed off to have afternoon tea at one of our favorite places: Coach and Horses Tea Room!

 

  

The Afternoon Tea started with a delicious mushroom, leek and potato soup - I am NOT a mushroom fan - but this soup was absolutely to die for! So delicious, thick but not too rich and perfectly creamy! Next came peppermint scones with clotted cream and jam; the clotted cream brought out the taste of the peppermint in the scone just perfectly!

The sweets and savories were too plentiful to list - meat pasties, a fruit tart, a butterscotch dessert - all so lovely and good! And one of my personal favorites - a perfect cucumber sandwich! I was positively stuffed once it was all said and done; but then again, I'm always stuffed when we have afternoon tea and I always walk out with a to-go container.

 

We spent Saturday night doing some Christmas decorating around the house and Lindsey and I went live in her online Perfectly Posh party to do some giveaways. It was a pretty chill evening and since two of the four people in the family had been up since early hours of the morning, everyone went to bed pretty early. I read for far too long before finally going to sleep...

 

Sunday morning I started the day with some coffee and the newest episode of Outlander before heading out to church and then some delicious brunch at Regions 117! We started with the Ginger Beignets and then I went with an old favorite in the French Toast smothered with fresh blueberries and cream, along with some peewee potatoes, which are just about one of the most heavenly things I've ever eaten!

We did a quick stop in at the house to do an outfit change and spruce up before going over to the Arboretum to have pictures made. As a Christmas gift for our parents, my younger sister and I decided to get a family friend to do a family picture session for my parents and so we had those done on Sunday afternoon! Of course, while the weather was pretty gorgeous it was also pretty cold and the wind was whipping around at about 20 mph for the entire shoot. No lie - at one point it began to sleet and flurry snow. It only lasted about five minutes but it was the first Winter weather of the season...and here we were without jackets, trying to smile and pretend we weren't freezing.

 

Lindsey and I are - as I've mentioned on here more than once - big Outlander fans and as we were making the loop drive through the Arboretum on Sunday afternoon, I pointed out the standing stones and we had to get out of the car and take some pictures. And my Dad felt the need to be a part of all the silliness too...

 

We ended the weekend going to catch a showing of Murder on the Orient Express at the Alamo and well...I was honestly underwhelmed. I loved the book and with such a varied and talented cast, I really had high expectations for this movie - but it fell a little flat to me. Oh well! We made in home just in time for the season three finale of Poldark before crawling into bed.

Oh yeah - a sneak peek at our family pictures below - I can't wait to see the rest!